


Breaking the Rules

by BC_Blackwood



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, I Just Want Negan to Have His Dark Little World, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Possessive Negan (Walking Dead), Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Burn, Smut, but it's worth it, not beta read we die like men, we all know what that means
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:57:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20539004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BC_Blackwood/pseuds/BC_Blackwood
Summary: “I broke all of my rules today!” She shrieked at him, taking the few short steps to glare up at him from inches away. “I did everything I’m never supposed to do, and I can’t keep doing that. I know what happens next!”He was silent and still, completely unbothered by her outburst as he searched her face appraisingly. “What rules?”She blinked and then frowned. “What?”His jaw cocked to the side as he considered her, his tongue rolling slowly over his bottom lip. “Tell me your rules.”She huffed and shook her head furiously, stepping away from him and crossing her arms defensively. “What do you care…”“Now that’s where you’re wrong.” He invaded her space, leaning down so that their faces were almost level. “Rules are damn important, darlin’. So, spit em out.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am Negan trash and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I started writing a one-shot and this thing has spiraled into monstrous proportions.  
As it says in the tags, this is a "slow burn", you can thank the characters for that one. I really just want to give Negan the messed up world he likes so much. This will impact some of the other characters quite a bit, including our main character. But, everybody needs to turn on the lights sometimes. Even Negan. So, that's where Lina comes in.  
Enjoy!

“Shit!”

It had been – she wasn’t sure exactly how long, definitely months – since she’d heard another human voice. The only human sounds she was used to were her own, and the ghastly growls of the walkers. If they could be called human.

“Simon-!” A pained grunt and the static of what has to be a radio of some kind. “Arat, you there?”

It’s a man, obviously. Hurt, obviously. What was less obvious is what type of man he was. She’s not stupid, she knows there is no shortage of absolute human filth alive out there, instead of all the good people who clobbered around rotting. The years since the dead started walking have taught her all about just how terrible people can be when there’s nothing to hold them back.

So, she doesn’t immediately reveal herself from her perch on the upper catwalk of the abandoned warehouse she’s been looting for the last 2 hours. She’d been here every day for over a week. It was quite the little prize, full of helpful essentials. She’d been looking thought a pallet of first aid items, trying to decide how much gauze she could stuff into the top of the pack she’d been working on filling when she’d heard it.

Gunfire.

She’d frozen in total panic for the entire time it had gone on, which had felt like hours but had probably only been a few minutes. When it had finally stopped – and the world had turned so freakishly still compared to the battery of assault a moment before – she had stayed crouched for a single moment. Then she jumped into movement, grabbing the pack from beside her and strapping it on quickly as she ran to the ladder on the wall close by. She’d barely gotten onto the catwalk when the warehouse door had banged open and then shut, accompanied by profound swearing in a deep voice and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Now, she was laying stomach down on the catwalk, her body stretched out along it so that not a hair of hers peeked over the edge. And she tried desperately to decide what to do next.

She was hoping that he – whoever he was – would solve the problem for her and leave. Maybe whoever he was calling on that radio would come get him and they’d be gone, none the wiser to her location. But as she listened to that gruff voice call into the radio with no response but static, she began to think that she wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“Kid, you read me?” Silence, then some static, and then only silence again.

“Well damn Lucille, we may be truly fucked this time.” A low chuckle that morphed into a bitten off groan.

Her brow furrowed as she stared across the warehouse at the opposite wall. It was bare grey cement, mostly hidden by the high shelves. She didn’t really see it as her mind spun. Who was Lucille? She could have sworn there was only the man.

He’d seemed to have given up on the radio. He wasn’t talking anymore. He was far enough away that she couldn’t hear him breathing. She took in swift breath at the thought that he’d died right below her. There was no way of knowing how badly he was hurt, but judging by his sounds she was sure that he was.

_Shitshitshit._

Biting the inside of her cheek against an out loud curse, she slowly shifted her body so that her head was at the very edge of the catwalk. She needed to know if he was dead, she told herself. If he was, it was only a matter of time until he turned and then she’d have another problem on her hands. She ignored her own internal questions about what to do if he was still alive. That was a much more complex scenario.

Her eyes scrunched closed.

_Just look over the edge, just look. Alive or dead, you have to know before you can plan._

Popping her eyes open, she didn’t give herself any more time to think and moved her head just enough for her eyes to peek over the edge. It took a moment of scouring the floor before she saw him.

He was sitting on the floor. Long legs splayed our before him, and – was that a baseball bat? She blinked, and something like relief spread warmly down her spine as she watched him turn it over and over in his hands. He was alive.

She squinted, looking for blood. But it was dim in here and he was wearing dark clothing. For all she knew, he could be covered in it beneath that leather jacket and she’d never be able to tell. She frowned to herself and watched him.

After a few more minutes, he let out a low groan and picked up a walkie from where it had been sitting next to his thigh on the floor. He held it to his mouth and asked for Simon again. No response.

More cursing.

She wished she could see his face. He seemed to be staring at the wall, or maybe the floor. Or maybe that baseball bat that was all wrapped up in wire. If he would only look up a little bit. All she could see was his dark hair, and she had a feeling that if she could just see his eyes she’d be able to know whether he was one of the bad ones.

She bit the inside of her cheek some more as she watched him, considering.

After a bit more time she could admit to herself that she didn’t want to watch him die. She’d seen enough of that. There were enough walkers in the world. If she didn’t help him, she’d regret it later. She knew that.

Inhaling softly, she kept her eyes glued to him as she opened her mouth. “How badly are you hurt?”

She watched as every inch of him went still, right in the middle of turning the bat over in his hands. And then she braced herself from flinching back out of his view as eyes sharper than steel flashed up to her. Instead, she kept herself perfectly still and stared back at him as he met her gaze. Trembling from fear and adrenaline, she was glad he couldn’t see the rest of her.

She really hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

She caught a flash of white teeth as he licked his bottom lip, obviously thinking as he stared up at her. She opened her mouth to speak again, then closed it just as fast. She’d taken the risk. It was up to him now.

“Shot to the shoulder, darlin’.” Suddenly he grinned, and although she couldn’t see much else of his face she got a good view of his pearly whites. “At least, I hope it’s the shoulder. If it got my lung you only have a few more minutes of my company. Which is damn unfortunate _for you_.”

And then he winked.

She blinked several times. What the…? Was this guy nuts?

Frowning, she replied “Can you breathe without pain? Is any blood coming up?”

A slight dimming of that grin, but then it was back in full force. “The only blood comin’ out of me right now is from this damn bullet would, darlin’. Now my turn for questions. What the hell are you doing up there?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat at the strange force behind his words. They were barely a question, like he expected an answer. Well, she was in the thick of it now. No use trying to back out.

“I heard the gunshots and hid.”

“Well I’m not gonna shoot ya, don’t you worry about that.” The grin went to full blown smile. “This doesn’t seem quite fair. You’ve seen all of me, and I barely get a glimpse. It’s only polite for you to come down here so we can make proper introductions.”

She told herself she wasn’t blushing at the innuendo of his words, and really hoped that this man wasn’t totally off his rocker. She hadn’t met anyone since the outbreak first started that talked the way he did, let alone in this sort of situation. She was starting to worry that he _was _one of the bad ones.

_Shitshitshit._

She didn’t respond right away, and they stared at each other for a bit. His grin never faded, and he propped his head back against the shelving so that he could stare up at her more easily. It put his Adams apple in sharp relief.

His wound wasn’t fatal on its own, not unless it got infected. If his friends came and got him he’d be fine and she could be on her merry way. He wouldn’t bleed to death on the cement floor.

“If I come down, what happens?”

A low chuckle as he looked up at her. “I put a face to that pretty voice, and maybe we’ll be friends.”

She huffed, and from the way his eyes crinkled she guessed he had heard. “And _then_?”

There was a quiet pause as his eyes narrowed up at her, a lick of his lips and then his arms widened out to his sides. One of them holding that grizzly looking bat. Almost like he was trying to show her she didn’t have anything to worry about. All it really did was show her that he was tall and long-limbed.

“I am _not_ going to hurt you, darlin’. You have my goddamn word. Do I have yours?”

The inside of her cheek was going to be raw from her chewing as she stared down at him. She nodded, and then realized he wouldn’t really be able to see that. “Alright. I’ll come down.”

With a deep breath to calm her nerves she used the railing to slowly stand and turn back to the ladder. She was halfway down when the unmistakable noise of a walker hitting the outside wall of the warehouse hit her ears. She froze with one foot halfway to the next wrung of the ladder and listened.

It was muffled – luckily these walls were good and thick – but it sounded like only one. Probably drawn by the gunshots that has sounded nearby. Sucking in a breath, she hightailed it down the ladder and spun to her companion.

His eyes flickered from the wall to her, no smile now. His eyes - dark and expressive – were hardened and serious.

Without a word she ran to the door and flipped the deadbolt, cursing herself for not having done that to begin with. Then she wouldn’t be in this mess. The door itself was industrialized, good solid metal. If the joints and the deadbolt held, there was nothing to worry about. Satisfied, she turned back around.

He was still in the same spot. His bat was vertical, sitting handle down on the floor with the _barbed wire_ dangerously close to his face. Which she could now see was covered in a thick layer of salt and pepper whiskers that brought a strong jawline to attention.

As their eyes met, he quirked a dark brow up at her and waited. She wished she knew what for, because she felt stuck.

There was at least one walker outside – probably more, the shots had been loud enough to draw any within range – and she was in a good secure building which would normally be great, except for the unknown company. He’d said that he wasn’t going to hurt her, but words didn’t mean shit.

She could guess that he probably had a gun somewhere about him, and if all else failed he was probably well acquainted with swinging that bat.

Granted, she had a gun of her own. And her knives. But, she felt her heart begin to race at the thought of fighting. It wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.

A low chuckle brought her back to the present, and she realized she’d been staring at the floor as she thought. She looked up at him, and that amused grin was back.

“Hell darlin’, don’t you worry about little old me. I gave you my word, and if you don’t learn anything else about me you should know that I take that shit _very_ _seriously_.” Something about the way his eyes bored into her as he spoke those words made goosebumps rise on her skin. “Still don’t have yours, though. Now do I?”

She gulped and licked her lips, before nodding. “I won’t hurt you, unless you try to h-hurt me.”

He watched with what she could only read as amusement as she shifted on her feet. “Great! So, now that that shit’s out of the way I can be polite. What’s your name?”

She did not get this guy, at all. Anyone else would be eight shades of cagey, trapped in here with a potential threat and wounded with no friends around. Shit, she wasn’t even hurt and she was ready to leap out of her skin just by being this close to him.

She sucked in a breath. “Lina, what’s yours?”

She watched in amazement as that grin widened, and she had to admit – to the safety of her own head – that his smile was incredibly attractive. Something about the way the skin around his eyes crinkled, she thought.

“I’m Negan,” he told her, looking pleased as punch and cockier than a rooster in a hen house.

She nodded and fiddled with her arms. “It…It’s nice to meet you.”

Something in his eyes flared as they widened just a little bit. “Shit, pretty _and_ polite. It’s my lucky day.”

She frowned at him and bit her lip in thought, still trying to figure him out. “Can’t be that lucky if you got shot.”

An amused chuckle. “Well shit happens.”

A few breaths to settle her nerves. “I…I can help with that, if you want. You’re probably still bleeding. Did the bullet go through?”

A long stare. “You a doctor?”

She realized that one hand was holding onto her belt in a death grip and loosened it. She nodded. “In the ER, before…”

A release of breath that was almost a whistle, his eyes traveling over her as if re-evaluating. “Holy shit,” another chuckle. “My lucky day indeed. Alright Lina, whatever you wanna do darlin’.”

And he leaned back in a relaxed pose as he continued to watch her. She tried to ignore how nice her name sounded carried on his voice. Well, any voice really. It had been so long since anyone had known her.

She took a deep breath and stepped away from the door, towards him. Her eyes were glued to him as she approached. He probably knew she was looking for the slightest wrong twitch, because not a muscle of his considerable length moved as she grew closer to him.

A few steps away, she stopped again. Her inner doubts were too much for her to continue. What if he was just waiting for her to get close enough, and then…? The fears were too numerous and varied for any single one to take shape. It was just a feeling of dread that settled in her chest.

“_Lina_,” She jumped, and watched as his eyes looked up from where she’d been drumming her fingers on her thigh in thought. “What did I say about my word? Now if we don’t have trust, we don’t have anything.”

She frowned a little and nodded, removing her pack and taking the last few steps to him. She settled down on her knees at his side and undid a zipper. He still made no movement, and her anxiety quieted just a bit. She set her pack down in front of her and turned fully to him.

“Take off your jacket and shirt.”

His eyebrows bounded up in surprise and obvious amusement. “Damn, darlin’. We just met, don’t be so forward!”

Her eyes went wide as he chuckled to himself, but again she ignored the obvious flirtation of his words. It was becoming obvious this was just how he was.

“I need to be able to see the wound,” she explained, and went back to digging in her pack for anything she had that might help.

Gauze, cotton balls, and rubbing alcohol were all good. She’d be willing to bet she could find a few other things in the building that would help, if needed. She even had a little home-maker sewing kit she always kept with her in case she tore her clothes or the pack itself. That would work for stitches. But, she didn’t really have anything that would be able to get a bullet out. She started praying that it had gone through him.

“Those limp-dicks are lucky,” he told her as he took his uninjured arm out of the leather first. “If they’da gotten a bullet hole in this jacket, unholy fucking fire would have been rained down on their idiot skulls. Lucille woulda been pissed! Didn’t have it on at the time though, too damn hot out.”

He caught her confused glance and that grin came right back. He nodded at the bat that was slung over his thighs, easily within his reach. “Meet Lucille, darlin’. She is _awesome_.”

He’d named a baseball bat. He was definitely crazy. But this life was crazy too, and he was being pretty damn nice. Maybe it took a crazy man to be a gentleman in a broken world like this one.

She glanced down at the bat – _Lucille_ – eyeing its glossy polish and the wicked barbed wire wrapped around the top third. Then she nodded. “Seems pretty nice.”

He gave her such a pleased look with such a wide smile that she felt a little butterfly of happiness dance around in her stomach. Sheesh, maybe she was crazy too. She set out the supplies she’d need on the ground next to them as she watched him peel the other arm of his jacket off. It revealed the white t-shirt he had on underneath it, which was stained in blood. She frowned at how much of it there was.

“Gonna need your help now darlin’. Can’t get this shirt off on my own.”

She paused for a moment and then nodded. If he was going to try something it would be now, while she was close and distracted. _Oh fuck it. _What was one more chance after all the ones she’d taken in the last few minutes?

She leaned forward and gathered the hem of his shirt in her hands, pulling up slowly as he leaned forward from the shelves. She raised the left side first, pulling it off of his raised arm and then off of his head. After that it was just a matter of peeling it away from the bullet hole and down his arm. She laid it down by his jacket, and turned back to inspect the wound.

It was actually less in his shoulder, and more his clavicle. She frowned and hoped the bullet hadn’t hit the bone. It had gone fully through, much to her relief. No worrying about how to dig a bullet out without tools. She set about cleaning it and the skin around it that was stained with his blood. It _was_ still bleeding, if not too badly. The cotton balls and gauze came in handy as she applied pressure to get it to stop.

He watched her the entire time. His dark eyes keen upon her as she worked to fix him up, barely even a sound of pain from him the entire time. Her sewing kit got an amused expression, and when she reached for the blue string he immediately ‘tsked’ and picked up the black instead.

His stitches took time. It had been a long while since she’d done this. She hummed to herself, going slow and careful to make sure they were done as perfectly as she could. The doctor that had overseen her mentorship probably would have been proud, she mused silently to herself as she finished up and cut the string.

Leaning back from him, she sighed and brought a hand up to her forehead. “Okay, I’m done.”

He was still watching her, an intensely serious expression on his face as his eyes traveled her form. Idly she thought that he was possibly even more handsome without the smiles, which was pretty impressive. She tried to remember the last time she’d had the time or inclination to consider a man being handsome, and then stopped when painfully happy memories of her old life tried to rush in.

Unable to meet his gaze, her own wandered. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that they wandered over _him_. Shirtless, she could take the time to appreciate his lean and powerful form. He had multiple tattoos on his arms, and chest hair that was just as salt and peppery as his whiskers. It dipped in a line down his body all the way to where his dark pants still sat, guarded by two belts.

She blinked and looked away, her eyes traveling to his hands and the bat they still held. One black glove sat on his right hand, the injured side. His other was bare. She wondered if the glove was to help with handling the bat? She wasn’t sure. She eyed that fierce looking barbed wire on the baseball bat again before looking away.

The amusement in his eyes wasn’t hard to catch, and she prayed she wasn’t blushing as heat flooded her face. “Like anything you see, darlin’?”

She bit her lip and turned slightly from him, working on putting everything away in her pack. He chuckled and settled back against the shelves, seeming perfectly at ease now that he wasn’t actively bleeding.

Once she’d closed up her pack she pushed it to the side and settled back on the floor, sitting Indian style. Her fingers drummed silently on her legs, betraying her nerves. She’d been so focused while she’d worked on him that they’d disappeared. But now that she was task less they’d rushed back.

“So…” she squirmed slightly in place and then looked up at him. “You know who shot you then?”

A raised eyebrow was her only response.

“You…said that you’d rain fire on some idiots. I’m thinking you must know _which_ idiots?”

The grin was back, it was perpetual like a fountain. His head leaned to the side as he regarded her. “Where ya from?”

She blinked at how quickly he’d avoided her question, “Uh, Massachusetts.”

“Ha, no darlin’. I mean where are you from _now_? What little community has you fillin’ up that pack to take home to?”

“Oh,” she frowned and shook her head. “No one, I…I keep to myself.”

“Damn,” he whispered it almost reverently as he stared her down. “You are impressing the _shit_ out of me right now.”

She looked away, regarding the almost completely full shelves of the warehouse for a few moments. “What about you? I heard you calling to someone on your radio. So you’re from a community?”

His eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly as he watched her. She didn’t miss it though, and it left her wondering what it meant. “You ever heard of Sanctuary, darlin’?”

She blinked at him and shook her head. “No, I don’t talk…I _haven’t_ talked to anyone in a long time. Is that your place? Your community?”

His smirk took on an altogether satisfied tilt. “Yes, it _is_ mine darlin’. Owned and operated by yours truly.”

“O-oh,” she stammered. “You’re the leader? Then…what are you doing out here?”

“I’m a man in high-demand. I go where I’m needed.”

He was being purposely vague, she realized. It made sense for a leader to be protective of what they’d built. She couldn’t blame him. Her fingers plucked out the end of a spare string and she started to fiddle with it, spinning it round and round.

She nodded and looked sideways at her pack. Why was she still here? She realized she couldn’t hear any walkers around the warehouse anymore. Chances were she could get out and be on her way.

“You leaving me so soon, darlin’?”

She flashed her eyes back up to him. Apparently he found nothing about this warehouse interesting except her. He’d followed her glance at her pack. She shifted, still messing with the loose string.

“I…should probably go. You’re alright now and it’s better if I’m by myself.”

His head tilted as he leaned forward, regarding her closely. “Better.”

It was a question, but so deadpanned that is sent a little chill over her skin. She just nodded, trying not to mind that he was suddenly very much in her personal space.

“Why is it better? Because I gotta tell you, Lina, you have made your worth _very_ goddamn clear within the last half hour. I am intent on the idea of you coming back with me. My Sanctuary always has room for a doctor.”

She was sure her eyes were wide as saucers as she gawked back at him. “Uhm, it’s just better.”

He was inviting her! He didn’t know her from Eve and he wanted to take her back to his community? To people he trusted, to the place he’d built? It was like holding salvation in the palm of her hand. She was suddenly breathless.

A low hum of disagreement was his reply, and with a start she realized that he had leaned in even closer. Their noses were nearly touching, and they were breathing the same air.

Every muscle in her body went rigid, ready to flee as she met him stare for stare. His eyes were the color of morning coffee, something she hadn’t had in so long but somehow she could suddenly taste. Framed by dark lashes, they regarded her closely.

“Lina,” She trembled at his voice, at the feeling of his breath hitting her cheek. “You’re trying to tell me that being alone out here in this fucking literal hell on earth is somehow _better_ for you than being under my watchful eye? Behind walls, and _guns_? And lemme tell you, it is a veritable ass load of guns!”

She blinked, and bit the inside of her cheek _hard_ to keep from smiling at him.

“I…” she sighed softly. “People aren’t always what you think they’ll be anymore. I’ve found it’s usually better to just stay away.”

No response to that, he just watched her. She wished she could read the enigmatic look in his eyes, but she didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell. Instead he was just a well of dark mysteries.

Suddenly the grin was back as he leaned away. “And yet, here you are. You could have sat up there with me none the wiser for who knows how fucking long.” It was strange how he sometimes made the effort to over-accentuate his g’s. “Free to go on your way after I left.” A head tilt and a slight frown. “Or _died_. Either way, little Lina is unbothered and home free.”

He had the oddest way of emphasizing his words. Certain ones stuck out in her mind, even after he was done speaking. She was chewing on her cheek again as her brow furrowed.

“But _no_, little darlin’. Instead, you clambered down that ladder and sat here, using your precious time and resources to sew me up.” The grin was gone, instead his lips were slightly parted as he waited for his answer.

Her fingers had still been tugging at the loose string. With another twist it came free, and she frowned down at it as she twisted it at both ends.

“I don’t like watching people die. I’ve seen enough of it. I…” She licked her lips, her throat suddenly dry. “I was worried you’d bleed out.”

Another low hum. “Well you rest assured, I don’t intend on dying anytime fucking soon.”

Looking at him, she had a feeling she’d never heard a truer statement. Something about this man – _Negan, his name is Negan_ – left her feeling like a leaf in the wind. He was his own force to be reckoned with. Even if he was probably insane.

She drew in a breath and nodded, her eyes falling to the radio at his side. “Shouldn’t you be trying it again? It’s been a while. Maybe your friends will be able to hear you now.”

That intent expression lingered for a lengthy, hushed few minutes. Then it was washed out by a smirk as he lifted the radio to his mouth.

“Dwighty boy, can you hear me?”

A stretched out silence, no static. And then “_Negan_?”

Something in his eyes flickered, and she watched him lick his bottom lip as he looked toward the door. “Hey kid. Those morons showed me how goddamn small their dicks really were today. I am talking no holds barred full ambush. Troy and Stevie are dead, and the truck is Swiss cheese.”

“_What do you wanna do_?”

“Tell Simon I want that whole fucking place surrounded, not a goddamn fly gets through unless he knows about it.”

“_And then what?_”

“And then nothing, until I say so. Send Arat and a few trucks to get me, I’m near that old rest stop off the highway. Have her bring five or ten boys, just in case there’s any more goddamn amateurs sitting around waiting for some action.”

“_Okay, yeah I’ll tell her. But it’s gonna be an hour before she gets there._”

“Yeah I know kid, I might not be home in time for dinner. I’ll miss you too.” A smug grin flashed and was gone. “Just tell her to radio me once she’s close, I’ll tell her where to go.”

“_Will do, Negan._”

Nodding, Negan turned his head and looked around the warehouse before then appraising her momentarily. The radio came back up. “And Carl, on second thought have her bring five or six empty trucks too. I think I hit the jackpot.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm baaaack.   
I have marked this story as having 30 chapters. I don't know if it will be exactly that many, could be a bit more or less but I think it'll be somewhere around there.

The radio was put back down, and Negan leaned back against the shelf looking pleased as punch. “Tell you what darlin’, today is shaping up to be a mighty fine day!”

She bit her lip and nodded, wondering who it was his group was fighting with and why. Probably over resources. That’s why anyone fought these days. What else was there? Food, medication, and a solid building were all that mattered anymore.

“Thank you for the offer, but I can’t go back with you.”

The smile he’d been sporting spoiled like bad milk, and he was back to giving her that inquisitive stare. “And why is that?”

She shook her head. “You’re fighting someone. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

His eyes narrowed, his head tilted and suddenly – for the first time in almost an hour – that bat moved. It came up between them and then settled on his shoulder, the barbed wire scraping against the box on the shelf behind him.

“Now I think you know, _very_ good and goddamn well, that these days everybody is fighting something. Me, sure. I’m fighting some piece o’ shit little group that wants to fuck with me and how I run things. That’s their choice, and I am only being accommodating.” His eyes went from amused to sharp in a moment, biting into her. “You, darlin’? Shit I’m sure you fight to survive every damn day. And you win, too.

“I can respect that. You know why that is? Because I know all about winning. It’s what I do best, and it’s the reason that hundreds of fuckin’ people are gonna be sleeping safe and sound tonight when they rest their little heads.

“I like having winners on my side. People that have the drive to survive and thrive. So,” his smile dropped, and suddenly she was aware of how alone they were. His eyes dug into her, trying to get beneath her skin. She fought the urge to run from him, or at least to scoot away so that he couldn’t grab her if he leaned forward. “I’m gonna make my offer again, darlin’. And just so you know, this is sure as _shit_ not given to everyone. Come back to the Sanctuary. Work for me.”

She was distinctly aware of how much that wasn’t a question. She bit her lip and didn’t answer, and the silence strained out between them as they shared a look. His eyes were ominous and unblinking, and left her with an itching feeling that he was trying to read her every thought and emotion. Soaking in every expression that she gave away.

She blinked and looked away, at the door. Could she grab her pack and unlock the deadbolt before he got to her? And how many walkers were out there?

“Tell you what. We still got time before we can blow this popsicle stand. You think about it.”

She frowned and glanced back at him. The grim look slowly melted and a smirk stretched slow and long. All it did was give her chills.

He must have noticed her shiver, but his expression didn’t change. She though she noticed a pleased gleam in his eyes.

The string snapped in two from all of her twisting and pulling. She crinkled her nose and flicked it away, resisting a sigh. With nothing else to do, she appraised her neat stitching on his collarbone.

“How bad does it hurt? I have some ibuprofen in here somewhere…”

She was digging in her pack before he could answer, grateful for something to do. The bottle rattled loudly as she pulled it out, only a quarter full. She set it down next to him, and then cast her eyes around the warehouse.

“And there was…” she stood and went only a couple steps away, pulling back a tarp and rummaging around in the bin beneath it.

When she turned around holding a pair of water bottles, he was standing up with that bat clutched in one hand.

She didn’t even think. Muscle memory and fear had her drawing the gun in her thigh holster instantly as she staggered back a few steps. The water bottles clattered on the floor, one of the caps busting. Trembling and wide eyed she watched him down the barrel of her suppressed Beretta.

He was still for a moment, his eyes traveling her form before focusing on her gun. An eyebrow arched before he met her eyes. “Darlin’, I am starting to think that _you think_ I’m a liar. Remember earlier, when I gave my word to you? Did you think that was a damn joke?”

She didn’t move, didn’t even blink as she took another step back.

“Are you gonna tell me you went through the trouble of patching me up, just to undo all your _hard_ _work_?” His eyes narrowed and his jaw cocked as he seemed to think about something, looking at her. Finally his grip on the bat loosened a little, and his arm fell to his side as the empty one came up in front of him palm forward. “You’re hurtin’ my feelings…”

She stared at his face for another few moments, before the adrenaline high started to peter out and she could think more clearly. Hand shaking, she lowered her gun and holstered it. Only after she took a deep breath did she realize how hard her heart was pounding.

“Sorry, I don’t…” She bit her lip and then sighed heavily, rubbing her forehead. She ignored her quivering fingers “I didn’t hear you move, and…”

His smile was still arrogant, but she thought she caught a bit of understanding in his expression. The bat came back up, and he eyed it for a second before resting it on his shoulder. “Now don’t let Lucille make you nervous. She might look mean but she can be a real peach.”

_Oh_ boy, this guy was batty. Biting back a hysterical giggle, she ran her hand up from her forehead over her hair. She’d gathered it into a neat bun this morning but she was sure it was a mess by now.

“Tell you what, come over here and hold her while I put my damn clothes back on. Gotta make myself decent for good company,” he laughed shortly at himself, and she wasn’t sure what to think of the way goosebumps rose on her arms at the deep sound. “And you can get better acquainted with her.”

“Wait,” she told him, stepping forward and picking up his shirt from where she’d discarded it earlier. She caught a whiff of detergent, but it was tainted by blood. She could taste the heavy metallic scent in the back of her throat. It was stiff from the drying blood. “This place must have been storage for an outlet store, before. There’s all sorts of stuff in here.”

She turned away and jogged down the aisle, before going down a few rows. Checking the tag on his shirt and digging in a box for a minute, she came up with her prize. With a pleased grin, she turned back and found that he’d followed her. He was leaning against the shelving at the end of the aisle, Lucille on his shoulder, an amused smirk on his face as he watched her.

“Here,” She held out a plain black t-shirt as she walked back to him. “It’s the same size as your old one.”

He whistled, taking the shirt from her. “I’ll be damned. How long you known about this place?”

She shrugged, and decided not to give away too much of her whereabouts. “A while.”

He nodded, and they walked back to where her pack and his leather jacket waited.

“Before you put that on, I should bandage your wounds. The stitches will get irritated by your clothing and it could affect your healing.”

“Whatever you say, darlin’,” he agreed easily, swinging Lucille lightly as he walked. They stopped at her pack and she tossed the ruined shirt aside. Then she dug out the gauze and some medical tape from her bag before turning to him.

He held still as she approached, no doubt wondering if she was going to freak out about getting close again. She might have been feeling a bit jumpy as she came up to his side and started covering the exit wound, but she worked through it.

Humming to herself, she finished the exit wound and moved to the front one. She was nearly finished – her pointer finger pressing on the medical tape to be sure it was in place – when she realized how close she’d moved to him.

Her breath became shallow as she went utterly still, staring down at the patch of gauze on his skin for a protracted moment. They weren’t even inches apart, and she could feel the heat of his skin against her torso.

The finger that had been on the medical tape strayed, all on its own. She watched on in amazement as it ran itself over the skin between the gauze and his neck, following the outline of his collarbone. When it reached the juncture where his shoulder met his neck, it stopped and seemed content to caress the skin there. To make things worse, its traitorous neighbor joined it.

Soft, warm breath hit her forehead. In a daze, she looked up and was met with eyes that had gone dark and deep. They watched her curiously, heatedly.

Her fingers realized how badly they’d crossed her, and went still on his skin. It was like a furnace under her touch.

She could smell him, she realized. Sweat and cologne and _man_. Something stirred inside of her and perked its head up with interest, licking a tongue of heat up her spine.

“_Negan, its Arat. We’re fifteen minutes out. Maybe less. Where do you want me?_”

With a shuddering breath, she stepped back. Turning away from him, she crossed her arms over herself and wondered what was wrong with her.

It was only after she’d finished berating herself for the second time over that she realized the warehouse was silent. Frowning, she turned her head to look back at him and felt butterflies flurry in her ribcage at what she found.

Negan was still looking at her. Heat was rolling in his eyes as they traveled her face, down over the rest of her and back. They paused at what had to be her lips and she felt herself blush furiously, sure she’d gone red as a firetruck.

“_Boss you there?_” An exasperated sigh escaped those parted lips before he reached for the radio.

“Damnit Arat, I was _having_ a _moment_.” He rubbed the radio’s antenna into his whiskers as he looked back at her and grinned softly. Still blushing, she turned back away and listened with half an ear as he gave the person on the other end directions.

Brow furrowed, she looked up at one of the windows high on the walls near the ceiling. It was still bright out, but it was definitely getting late in the afternoon. With a frown, she wished she’d found some watch batteries in here. She’d run out a few weeks ago and was beginning to think she’d have to go into the nearest city to find more, which she’d been delaying. Cities were always crawling with the undead, not a great place to go at any time. Much less alone.

She rubbed at her head and went over to the water bottles she’d dropped earlier. One of the caps had definitely busted its seal, and there was a little pool on the floor from where it had slowly dribbled out. She shook her head and picked up the other bottle before retrieving a third from the package she’d opened.

With a deep breath she turned back to him. Of course, Negan was watching her with his head slightly tilted. Lucille in one hand, the other in the pocket of his dark pants. One of his belts slightly askew across his hips. She pointedly did _not_ ogle his muscles, but she would have had to be blind not to appreciate his broad shoulders or square jaw.

Avoiding his eyes, she picked up the bottle of ibuprofen that she’d gotten out earlier and shook out a couple pills into the palm of her hand. Biting her tongue, she held them out to him along with the water. “Here, you should take these. The anti-inflammatory will help and-”

“Darlin’,” he cut her off with a voice like velvet, and her eyes snapped to his of their own volition. Her throat went dry as she watched him lick his bottom lip slowly in thought. “It’s alright.”

She didn’t reply, and held the pills out further. He let loose a disappointed sigh and took them, popping them into his mouth and swallowing before taking one of the bottles to chase them down. She cracked the other one open and took a long swig. It was room temperature but it felt like heaven against her throat anyway.

She was well aware of Negan still observing her fixedly. But she had absolutely no idea what to do or say. Why the hell hadn’t she left already? Why? She had shit to do and dinner to make tonight, and she wasn’t exactly close to where she stayed. Now here she was, in an intensely awkward situation with a guy that was at least a little touched.

_Yeah, by you._

“Here,” he interrupted her thoughts, and she realized he was holding the bat out to her handle first. “Hold this.”

Raising her eyebrows, she took it from him carefully. It was lighter than she’d expected, and she gripped the handle firmly as he tore the shirt from its thin plastic packaging. She looked away when he started to pull it on, refusing to watch the way the muscles in his lower abdomen tightened. Refusing to acknowledge the way looking at them made something tighten in _her_.

So she looked at Lucille instead. The distinguishing wood grain, the glossy finish, a handle made so smooth by regular use. The barbed wire glinted in the dim light from the high windows, grinning viciously up at her. She bit her lip and ran some fingers over the bent metal. The pads of her fingers caught on the sharp barbs, but she was gentle and they didn’t cut her.

The wood underneath the metal seemed to be tinted just the slightest bit darker than the handle. She could guess why, and resisting a shudder she didn’t think about it anymore. Turning it slowly in her hands, her curious fingers met a strange lump. With lowered brows she examined it closer, before blinking in surprise.

A bullet was lodged in the wood. It was deeply set, and the barbed wire was wrapped over it protectively. She frowned, wondering at the implication as the pad of her thumb stroked over the wire leisurely.

Who _was_ this guy?

A low hum of interest broke over her, and she startled out of her ponderings as he stepped towards her unhurriedly. Both his new shirt, and the leather jacket were back on. “Better give her back now, little darlin’.” He gave her a grin that seemed friendly, but she could tell it was masking something deeper. “Lucille seems to like you, and I’m starting to get jealous.”

She blushed at his strange words and handed Lucille back to him. He took the bat almost gleefully, and it came to rest on his uninjured shoulder.

Pulling some of the loose strands that were falling from her bun out of her face, she kneeled back down and put everything back into her pack, tucking her water bottle into the front, smaller pocket. She was aware that he was watching her do it, and not at all ignorant of the aura of displeasure that radiated from him.

_He can’t really expect me to go with him_.

She didn’t speak and just turned away, carrying her things over one shoulder as she made her way down the aisle until she reached the medical supplies she’d been looting earlier. It felt like days ago.

Sighing, she restocked the gauze that she’d used on Negan and grabbed the bottles of Tylenol she’d debated over previously. Chewing her cheek, she took another bottle each of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol too. Negan and his people would probably clean this place out, there wouldn’t be any more coming back here whenever she wanted.

Once she’d sealed up everything, she sat there on her knees for a moment and stared blankly ahead. Back and forth her mind went.

Go with Negan.

Run away.

See the Sanctuary.

Get home while she still could.

_Walls_, real walls.

Freedom to leave at any moment.

_Enough._ Shaking her head, she rubbed her face and stood.

Of course, Negan was leaning oh-so casually against the door when she got to it, swinging that bat around in lazy circles and watching it as though he had nothing better to do in the world. His eyes flitted to hers when she approached, and the bat swung casually down to his side. He just eyed her, waiting.

She took in a deep breath, “please move.”

He grinned and tilted his head back against the door, an amused slow chuckle leaking out. She watched his Adam’s apple bob and looked away, fighting a blush. Why did the random guy that she’d happened across have to be attractive? The chuckle petered out into an exasperated sigh, like he was trying so hard and _she_ was being the difficult one. “Walls and _guns_, Lina.”

“Please, just-!” She broke herself off with a frustrated sigh and clenched her teeth. “You don’t understand.”

“Understand _what_?” For the first time, she heard frustration in his voice as he practically growled out the words.

She looked down at her boots and swallowed. “Please just let me leave. I can’t-”

“Understand _what_?” He repeated, emphasized by the end of Lucille tapping on the floor.

“I broke all of my rules today!” She shrieked at him, taking the few short steps to glare up at him from inches away. “I did everything I’m never supposed to do, and I can’t keep doing that. I know what happens next!”

He was silent and still, completely unbothered by her outburst as he searched her face appraisingly. “What rules?”

She blinked and then frowned. “What?”

His jaw cocked to the side as he considered her, his tongue rolling slowly over his bottom lip. “Tell me your rules, darlin’.”

She huffed and shook her head furiously, stepping away from him and crossing her arms defensively. “What do you care…”

“Now _that’s_ where you’re wrong.” He invaded her space, leaning down so that their faces were almost level. “Rules are damn important, darlin’. So, spit em out.”

Pursing her lips, she shot him another dirty look and resisted backing away from his intense presence. “I stay quiet and out of sight at all times. I don’t go near anyone, I don’t talk to anyone, and I don’t help anyone…I don’t get close to anyone.”

He quirked his lips. “Oh my, you _did _break all your rules.” He tsked softly and leaned in closer, “and all for me. Damn darlin’, I am starting to think that _you_ are something special.”

Something flickered to life in his eyes, flashing through emotions too fast for her to track. A chill raced down her spine.

She had no response. Her heart was in her throat, her stomach was doing jumping jacks and all of her sense were full of him. She could smell him again, only this time his leather coat was layered in on top. Somehow it was even more right and even more tempting. Her eyes were trapped in his own, swimming in a dark gaze full of furtive mystery. His breath was ghosting over her cheek, the softest caress to remind her that he was _right there_.

He hadn’t touched her, she realized. Not once. Not even his fingers brushing against her own when he’d passed her Lucille. Something about that maddened her. How could she be feeling this way when all he’d done is talk?

“Come back with me.” His lips curved in a grin that was more than a little dangerous. “And I’ll help you make some new rules.”

Another moment and she would have either slapped him or kissed him.

The gunfire started before she had a chance to decide.

They swiveled as one towards the door, listening as multiple shots sounded all at once. It was further away, not right near the building.

“_Boss, got a small herd forming out here. They must have heard your gunfight. We’re mowing em down now and the building is in sight. Be there in a few._”

The radio went silent, but it had already broken the spell between them. Lina bit her lip and stepped away, shouldering her pack.

She heard him let out a displeased sigh, knowing his attention was still focused on her. “I’m starting to think she’s doing it on purpose.”

She couldn’t resist grinning at him at that comment, and the throaty chuckle he let go in response only made her smile broader.

Hefting Lucille, he turns and strides to the door. The deadbolt is thrown back and he opens it with a bravado that she envies as she follows right behind, watching the leather of his jacket stretch across his broad back as they go down the steps outside.

He cocks the bat back and swings, and blows through a walkers head so easily it almost sickens her. There are a few wandering around near the warehouse, and she draws a knife from inside her jacket sleeve to help. They dispatch them quickly enough, and she comes back to stand next to him where he watches down the road.

There is a truck caravan not far away, and the trucks are accompanied by a massive group of people. So many that her eyes widen in shock. They are making quick work of a herd, machine guns rattling. Once the herd was down to a manageable size, the gunfire stopped and they went in with melee weapons. The last walker was down within a couple minutes.

It was all over and done with so fast and efficiently it made her head spin. She swayed slightly on her feet, watching as the group of fighters and the trucks made their way over.

Once they were a couple hundred yards away, the awe shook itself off and panic at the overwhelming numbers set in. She slid her knife back into it’s wrist sheath and made the mistake of glancing at Negan out of the corner of her eye.

He was watching her, naturally. Weighing and measuring her reactions.

When the trucks pulled up and the engines cut, a scrappy looking young woman with caramel skin came up to meet Negan. She had naturally dark hair that she obviously kept short with the ends bleached. She wore a plaid shirt, ripped jeans and dark boots. And she looked completely at ease with the shotgun she carried in her fingerless gloves.

“Arat,” Negan greeted her, and he had a knowing grin on even as his voice carried the lightest bit of chastisement. “I know I told Carl five or ten guys. And here you show up with forty.”

His head tilted and his body leaned as he waited for her to answer.

Arat shrugged. “He figured you might want to do some searches once the trucks were loaded up.”

She glanced at Lina. It was only a quick flash of her eyes, appraising a possible threat. Not a glint of curiosity or emotion before looking back to Negan expectantly. Something about it made Lina’s blood go cold.

The man in question smiled wide, laughing lowly as his eyes ran over his men. “Oh, that boy knows me _too_ damn well. Get em into that warehouse,” he gestured towards the building casually with Lucille. “I want all of it.”

Arat nodded, and with a wave of her hand the guns and weapons were put away around them as the other men and women began to filter into the warehouse. Lina heard the receiving bay doors slowly rattle open, and the trucks were lined up.

“Got something for you on the way here,” Arat continued. There was a commotion from the nearest truck, and the three of them turned to watch as a couple of men hopped out of the back, pulling…

Pulling a person between them.

Instinctively Lina stepped back, her fingertips brushing against the knife hilt in her sleeve as they dropped the guy to his knees in front of Negan. Then they stepped back a few steps, and watched their prisoner carefully. Their faces were iron, Arat’s was ice, and the man on his knees was all sweat and tears as his eyes raised to the man in charge before shrinking away, back to the ground.

Negan grumbled out an amused laugh, but the smile that stretched his lips was vicious. It didn’t touch his eyes, which were now filled with a grim and icy interest. “Ha _haa_, well look what we have here.” He didn’t even blink as he stared down at the guy, examining every tear and bead of sweat for weakness. “Where’d you find him?”

“He and some buddies tried to jump our forward jeep. Didn’t work.” Arat’s voice sounded almost bored.

The grin stretched wider, and after a moment he nodded slowly. Lucille reached out, the barbed wire bright and deadly in the late afternoon sun as the head of the bat caught the prisoner’s chin. His head came up, and he grunted through his teeth as barbed wire cut into his skin. Blood tricked down his throat and stained the neck of his shirt. He stared up at Negan, and there was such horror in his eyes it made something deep in Lina’s stomach squirm and crawl.

Negan was watching him appraisingly, his eyes tracking every throat bob, every twitch. “Put him back in the damn truck. We’ll take him home with us, show him some good old fashioned hospitality.”

The two men stepped forward and hauled the guy back, and it was only when Negan finally looked away – back to Arat – that the prisoner panicked.

“N-no. _No_! NO!” He scrambled, and somehow made it out of the grip of the two men. Then he was running toward the trees on the side of the road.

Everyone’s attention was on him, even Negan’s as he barked an order for his men to run the prisoner down. So Lina took her opportunity.

Slipping back on silent feet, she made it around the side of the building without being noticed and ran for the forest. Once she was in the trees she slowed a little bit and looked back. No one was following that she could see. Jogging to the tree where her mountain bike leaned, waiting, she shook her head at herself.

_This is what happens_. Heart pounding, she turned her bike and hopped onto the seat, pedaling away as quickly as she could through the trees. _This is why there are rules. No more breaking them._

-

It was only once his newest prisoner was back in the hands of his men – after taking a pretty kick to the jaw from Arat – that Negan turned to Lina. “Alright darlin’, you ready to make the right choice-?”

His words cut off as he realized her absence, and his jaw tightened right along with his grip on Lucille as his eyes canvased the area looking for evidence of her. Nothing. Despite the bit of temper he felt rising he couldn’t help but be impressed, she was a slippery little thing.

He was aware of Arat coming to stand beside him, of her looking around at the trees. “I’ll send some people out after her. She can’t have gotten far.”

A smile flitted across his features and was gone, fast like good poison. “No, no. Let her go.” His eyes narrowed in mean amusement. “First one’s free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already working on the next chapter, not sure when it'll be done.   
I'd love to know your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've had a little trouble with this chapter but I'm happy with how it turned out.   
Warnings for this chapter, smut and graphic violence are both depicted herein. It's in the tags, so I hope everyone reading is prepared.

Carl is sitting in the bullet the factory’s office, going over the counts when the radio he keeps on him crackles.

“_Dwighty boy, can you hear me_?”

There is a long moment of silence, Dwight obviously being out of range or without his walkie. So, Carl pulls his up and answers instead. “Negan?”

“_Hey kid. Those morons showed me how goddamn small their dicks really were today. I am talking no holds barred full ambush. Troy and Stevie are dead, and the truck is Swiss cheese_.”

Immediately Carl’s pulse skyrockets and his eye narrows. He thinks about asking if Negan’s alright, he thinks about telling him he’s glad to hear from him. It’s been a tense hour and a half since Laura first noticed that Negan wasn’t responding to any radio communication, which was out of character for their talkative leader. Simon and Dwight had dispatched multiple teams on search patrols within minutes of hailing Negan to no answer.

“What do you wanna do?”

“_Tell Simon I want that whole fucking place surrounded, not a goddamn fly gets through unless he knows about it_.”

Carl nods to himself, making a mental note. Negan will have plans. “And then what?”

“_And then nothing, until I say so. Send Arat and a few trucks to get me, I’m near that old rest stop off the highway. Have her bring five or ten boys, just in case there’s any more goddamn amateurs sitting around waiting for some action_.”

“Okay, yeah I’ll tell her. But it’s gonna be an hour before she gets there_._”

“_Yeah I know kid, I might not be home in time for dinner. I’ll miss you too._” Carl rolls his one good eye and doesn’t respond to the dig. “_Just tell her to radio me once she’s close, I’ll tell her where to go_.”

“Will do, Negan.”

He is out of the office and walking brusquely towards the two jeeps he has brought with him when the radio sounds off again. “_And Carl, on second thought have her bring five or six empty trucks too. I think I hit the jackpot_.”

At the jeeps, Arat, Laura, and a few of Negan’s men are waiting where he left them. Carl beelines to Arat and relay’s Negan’s orders. The loosening of shoulders amongst everyone is noticeable, tension draining now that they know where Negan is.

Everyone climbs in the jeeps and they speed back to the Sanctuary, Carl radioing orders ahead and contacting Dwight and Simon. When they pull through the walker fence the trucks are ready to go, along with the forty people Carl had asked for. They sit in trucks, jeeps and vans armed to the teeth. There is an aura of fury.

Arat takes charge of them and the convoy rolls out. Carl watches them go, then sighs. He doesn’t mind getting out of doing bullet inventory for the day, it’s exhausting crunching those numbers. But Negan will want it done, so unless Eugene does it when he gets bored Carl will have to go back tomorrow.

But, tomorrow isn’t today. So instead Carl waves his goodbye to Laura and heads inside, up to his room. He slouches down into his couch and picks up the book he’s been reading from the coffee table. It’s a military book, battle tactics. He’s been slogging through it for the last week under Negan’s watchful eye. It’s boring for the most part, the only thing he likes is when Negan sits down and talks to him about how to use the tactics with the Saviors.

He’s still reading a few hours later, having been drawn into an explanation of Napoleon’s tactics against Prussia, when a low chuckle sounds in his doorway. He’s up and almost all the way to Negan before he stops himself, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You’re back.”

Negan gives him an amused grin from where he leans against the door frame. He stands straight and throws an arm over Carl’s shoulder, pulling him into a half hug. “Damn kid, I missed you too.”

Carl doesn’t swing his arms around him like he wants to, but he does lean into him for a moment. Smells the leather of his jacket and blinks his eye _hard_ to fight back the hot tears.

_He’s alive. It’s okay. He’s alive._

Negan seems to know, and he keeps him close as he walks them over to the couch.

Carl notices him squint uncomfortably as he sits and stretches out his arm to lean Lucille against the front of the couch. He runs his eye over him but can’t see any blood or obvious injuries. Nothing he needs to worry about, then.

He’s glad. He can’t imagine what would happen next, without the man with the bat around.

They talk for a while, nearly an hour before there’s a knock on the door and Tanya comes in with Judith in her arms. She and Frankie like watching his little sister, they take shifts at it almost all of the time.

Something in Carl still squirms at _wives_ in the multiple. But it isn’t his business, and he’s learned after nearly a year here that unless it’s his business there’s no reason to bring anything up.

Judith gurgles happily when she sees them, reaching out her little arms. Tanya sets her in Negan’s lap, and Carl watches as a sincere smile stretches across his leader’s face before he begins to talk to her.

Carl gets that smile sometimes, when he does something to make Negan proud of him. Judith gets it often, sometimes Carl thinks that she is the highlight of Negan’s day. Too innocent and young to do anything but love him.

Tanya leaves, and they sit there for another half hour with Judith.

Carl likes this part of his day, when Negan is calm and seems content to sit with them and talk. His Saviors have learned not to interrupt him during these times, unless something serious is happening.

Eventually dinner comes, and Frankie along with it to take Judith back. So he and Negan are left alone to eat and talk. Before taking another bite Negan asks him “did you finish the bullet inventory today?”

Carl sighs and drinks some water before responding. “No, I’ll have to go back tomorrow.”

Negan gives him a displeased look but doesn’t say anything, eating instead. Carl notices that his right arm is moving slower than normal and catalogues it in his mind.

“There shouldn’t be a shortage if we have to use them against Danvers, Eugene’s been keeping steady stock.”

A self-satisfied smirk twitched Negan’s lips. “Those idiot pricks are gonna regret today. Simon’s got that piece of shit little fort of theirs locked down tight.”

And just like that, normal Negan is back.

“Speaking of which,” something glints in Negan’s dark eyes, and Carl knows this will not be a normal night. “Finish your food quick kid, I got a surprise for you.”

So he does finish his dinner quickly, even before Negan. Then he follows him down from their rooms to the main floor. And then down some more, and Carl’s whole body goes cold when he realizes they’re going to the cells.

They aren’t far away when he hears it.

_‘…It’s time to have a little fun_

_We’re inviting you to come and see why you should be_

_On easy street…’_

He shivers, his mind shying away from the three straight days he’d spent listening to that song – alone in the dark. Instead he stares at Negan’s leather covered back just in front of him.

_‘…’Cause the world is ‘bout a treat_

_When you’re on easy street…’_

Liam is waiting for them in the hallway, and at the sight of Negan he shuts the music off. He’s only come to Sanctuary within the last six months. Carl likes him because he doesn’t remind him of anything from _before_.

Negan likes him for other reasons.

“Is the asshat enjoying his accommodations?”

Liam grins, his intensely blue eyes shining above a dark beard. It’s not a _nice_ grin. “Loving it, boss. He finally stopped pounding on the door about twenty minutes ago. Threw his sandwich back at me too.”

Negan laughs aloud and wanders over to the door. Lucille comes up, and bangs loudly against the metal three times. The sound echoes ominously, but Carl doesn’t flinch. Not anymore.

The door is pulled open to reveal the man being kept inside, and instantly Carl knows he’s from Danvers. It’s easy to tell, they all wear one of those green patches on their clothes. A green circle with a black rifle. Carl isn’t sure what it was used for before the outbreak, but that patch stands for Danvers now. The Danvers Militia, they call themselves.

Negan has been poking and prodding them for a few weeks now. Ever since they shot at Simon and his men during a pickup. Three Saviors had died, they hadn’t even had the chance to draw their guns. Simon had been shot in the arm.

Carl hadn’t seen Negan so angry since…well, in a long time. Since then it had been all hands on deck, the Sanctuary and every outpost along with it were practically boiling over in anticipation for a fight. Aside from walkers, there hadn’t been much to take out frustrations in a while. Not since that annoying biker gang had rolled through about five months ago, but they’d barely lasted a week against Negan.

But they hadn’t moved against Danvers yet, not really. And everyone – Carl included – was wondering why.

Watching the way Negan leered ferociously down at the prisoner, he had a feeling he was about to find out.

The man was already in rough shape. He had blood on his neck, a black eye that was puffed up, and his jaw was disfigured and swollen. He looked up at Negan from his knees at the back of his cell, hunched against the wall. Carl thought he saw tears.

Lucille tapped against the doorframe to a steady rhythm as Negan watched him, and there was no other sound except for the captive’s labored breathing. Finally the sound of Negan sucking on his teeth was heard, and then he stepped back and closed the door without a word.

“W-wait,” the prisoner stammered from inside. “Wait!”

The music was turned back on and Negan gestured for Liam to follow them out as they made their way back up. Once they were on the factory level Liam broke off, and Carl followed Negan outside to stand on one of the walkways overlooking the fence.

It was full night now, and the coolness of the air gave away how close fall was getting. He leaned on the faded yellow safety railing next to Negan, and they watched one of the walkers try repeatedly to remove its metal covered head from the chain link.

“Why didn’t we ask him anything?” Carl asked.

Negan gave him an appraising sideways eye, then turned back to the walkers. “He’s not ready. We’ll let him stew in his own sweat for a little longer, have that little weasel _good_ and ready to squeal after a night of no sleep.”

Carl pursed his lips and looked down at Lucille where she rested in Negan’s gloved hand. “How do you know? How can you ever know?”

The smile that stretched across Negan’s face – wide, showing bright white teeth – was unreadable and only confused Carl more. “Hell kid, people are only so unique. In the end, most of em will do anything to save their own sorry asses.”

Negan’s smile morphed as he turned and leaned back against the railing, looking at him. Carl knew that smile. It was the one he’d gotten when he’d jumped out of the back of a truck, machine gun in hand and so ready to kill the leader of the Saviors. Or when Negan had made him spaghetti that first time, and Carl had admitted – feeling like he was betraying something – that it was good. And again, when Negan had crouched down in front of him and he’d called himself Negan for the first and only time. He wondered what it meant this time.

“You’ll learn. It takes time kid, you don’t become a people person overnight.” A wink and a grin, and Carl half-frowned in reply.

“But he wanted to talk,” he pushed back, crossing his arms. “Why not see what he has to say?”

A low chuckle rolled through the darkness. “I don’t give a _damn_ what that cumstain has to say. This is what you’ve gotta understand, kid. It’s never what they _want_ to say that you should care about.” Negan leaned in close, his voice dropping in pitch. “I want the shit that’s down deep in his guts. _I_ want the shit that he _won’t_ say.”

He’s aware of Negan watching him as he looks out past the fence in thought. “You want to know why they turned on us.”

“_And_?”

He sighs and reaches up to scratch the buzzed short hair on his head. “Isn’t that what we care about?”

Negan gives him a smug wink as he swings an arm over his shoulder and they go back into the factory, Lucille swinging jollily at Negan’s side. “You’re smart, kid. You’re smart. But you still got a _lot_ to learn.”

A few hours later, Carl puts down the strategy book and rubs his eye. It’s late. Scratching his neck, he heads down the hall to the wives’ sitting room. Frankie is there with Judith, watching the little girl play sleepily with some wooden blocks. Carl smiles at her and murmurs a thank you, picking up Judith and carrying her down the hall to her room right next to his.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…” he sings quietly to Judith as he helps her into her pajamas, washes her face with a warm washcloth and lays her into her crib. “…You’ll never know dear, how much I love you…”

He keeps singing as she smiles up at him, her eyes drooping closed. She’s asleep long before he’s done with the song, but he keeps singing anyway. “…please don’t take my sunshine away.”

He stays for a few minutes to watch her sleep, before leaving for his own room. He’s almost there – lost in tired thoughts of how Napoleon escaped Elba – when Negan passes him going the other way, flanked by Arat and Liam.

“Why am I repeating myself, Arat? I fucking told you, _no_.” He spins and glares down at her, and Carl stops and stares. He has _never, ever _seen Negan have to discipline Arat. He’s never seen Arat do anything to deserve it. “Just tell him to keep a goddamn eye open for her, like I told you the first time.”

It is so quiet Carl can hear his own heart beating in his ears. Liam is facing straight ahead, not even a flinch of his eyes towards the two people next to him. Arat’s eyes are wide as she stares at Negan’s feet. Then she blinks, nods, and looks up at him.

“Yes, sir. You’re right, it’s my mistake.” Her face is a blank mask.

Negan keeps looking at her, his jaw grinding in thought. Finally he nods slowly and jerks his head in dismissal. Liam is around the corner in three strides, Arat just behind him. He thinks she looks pale.

Carl realizes he’s still staring and takes the last few steps to his door. He’s aware of Negan following him, leaning against the doorframe as he pours himself a glass of water. He wants to ask about what – or who – Negan is looking for, but he doesn’t. Judging by the way Negan is grinding the end of Lucille against the floor, it wouldn’t go well.

Instead he sets the glass on his bedside table and sits down on the edge of his mattress. “Are you going to question him without me?”

Dark eyes stayed intent on his face. “You want me to?”

It was a trick question and Carl knew it. If he said yes, that he didn’t want to take part, Negan would definitely include him. If he said no, then of course Negan would still include him. It was a question of variances. One answer would go against what Negan wanted, the other would be e_xactly_ what he wanted.

“No,” he shook his head slightly. “I want to go.”

It wasn’t until Negan was gone – with a tilted smirk and a satisfied nod, whistling down the hallway – and he had lain down to sleep that Carl realized he was smiling.

-

It always surprised her, after everything, that dawn could still be pretty.

Sometimes it felt like nothing should be pretty anymore. Or nice, or kind, or gentle. Hadn’t all of that died a long time ago?

Watching the sun come up over the treetops on the far horizon, Lina closed her eyes and let the first rays of day wash over her.

She sat on the roof of the house she stayed in, her compound bow sitting in her lap in case she needed it. It was quiet around where she stayed, and she kept it that way to avoid attracting any walkers by sound. Plus arrows were reusable.

Her place was a cottage in the woods, by any definition. Mostly a single floor, it had a small upper loft where she slept. Whoever had owned it previously hadn’t liked people on their property. Steel fencing wrapped around it in a neat rectangle, encompassing the house and a small shed. A gate guarded the entrance, which was met by a long gravel road that went on for almost a half a mile before it reached a main road.

The day she’d found it, she almost hadn’t been able to believe her luck.

There hadn’t been a car, but she had one of her own that she kept parked by the gate with a full tank of gas. She’d scavenged it from a nearby town before she’d even found the house. She didn’t like to use it, in case she’d need it for some sort of emergency getaway. And she was paranoid about running out of gasoline. So she used the bike instead, if she could.

There had been a couple of walkers wandering around the area, bumping up outside of the fence. But the gate and the house had been shut tight, the kitchen had been empty of perishables and there was even a gas generator in with the washing machine. About a month in, she’d even been able to scavenge some solar panels for the place. It had taken another month to get them operating right, but it was worth it now.

She opens her eyes and stares at the clouds being dyed to apricot sorbet, streaked through with pink and violet. Another few minutes and she’ll go inside, she doesn’t like being so exposed. She only risks it to have some peace at the beginning of the day. 

Sleep had not come easy last night, and it had been short lived. She kept waking, checking her front door, feeling like someone was going to bust through it at any moment.

Yesterday had been a mistake, from start to finish. She shouldn’t have revealed herself. She should have ran the first chance she’d gotten. Only pure luck had gotten her away safe and sound.

After a few more minutes she sighs and leaves the roof, dropping back down to the ground by the backdoor. Her mountain bike was sitting against the side of the house, a little muddy from the path she’d cut through the woods last night to get home fast. Running a hand through her dark hair, she sighed and went back inside.

One of the first things she’d done upon moving here was outfit all of the windows with blackout drapes that she’d scavenged from a home improvement store. She kept them shut tightly at night, to avoid any light eking out to attract walkers. In the day time, she left a few inches open so that natural light could come inside.

Before everything, she’d lived in a beautiful loft with two roommates. There’d been floor to ceiling windows that faced east, and she’d spent a lot of free time soaking in the sun on the couch. Her little cabin didn’t have anything like that, but it was nice enough. Grabbing a breakfast bar she sat down on the couch and picked up the gardening magazine she’d found a few days ago.

She had one in the back, a few yards from the house. It was manageable, but she’d been having a lot of trouble with the broccoli.

Growing her own food was a no-brainer in terms of survivability. So she’d started a garden, and become embarrassed with herself at how little she’d known. So, gardening books and magazines were one of her favorite things to keep an eye out for when she went out scavenging.

Most of the morning passed with her engrossed in the magazine, making notes to herself on things to try for a better yield. She frowned at the article about apples and apple trees. She’s had half a mind to try growing one, but the process of even getting a tree that would grow edible fruit seemed long and arduous. Trying to wash the wishful taste of a freshly bitten ripe apple from her mouth, she put the magazine down and went to the kitchen for some water.

The house’s well was luckily still in good working order. She wondered how long that would last. At this point she was used to using a water purifier, but about a month ago she’d found the water treatment supplies she’d needed for the well. Now she could cook and shower without having to worry, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been taking advantage.

Filling up her water bottle, she left the house and went out to the garden for her daily watering, and some weeding.

By the time she was done, it was late afternoon and the small of her back was aching. Putting back her water bucket, she knuckled her spine and stretched.

Then she picked up her bow and went on a patrol of the fence, checking the joints and the spikes in the ground to be sure they were still sturdy and undamaged. She was almost back to the gate at the front when she heard the unmistakable growl of a walker.

She stopped with a grumpy huff, knocked an arrow and turned. But she didn’t loose right away, she just stared.

It was a kid.

It had been a girl, judging by the pink sweater that was covered in a layer of grime and vileness that Lina couldn’t even put a name to. The hair was only chin length, and a good half of it’s scalp was torn off to reveal the skull beneath it. It’s jaw was lopsided and the skin of it’s nose had rotted away, leaving just the nasal cavity and the bone exposed. It was missing an arm, somewhere below the shoulder it just ended in a mangled mix of cloth, decaying flesh and bone.

She noticed it had a good chunk of it’s neck missing and didn’t look any further down. A few more steps and it hit the fence, it’s one arm coming up and reaching for her as its face pressed into the bars, desperate to reach her.

With a deep breath, she loosed her arrow and watched it hit that bare patch of skull. Heard the gurgling cut off. Watched the head snap back as the body spun to the side and fell with a dull thud in the grass. Then she forced herself to look away and quietly watched the trees for a few minutes, fighting the thoughts that started to bleed through into consciousness.

Finally she turned and continued on with her boundary check, able to finish without being interrupted again.

Dragging the body away from the fence and back into the trees so it could decompose out of her sight was not a fun task. She wrapped a bandana over her face, put on some thick yellow rubber gloves, and did her best to ignore the smell.

By the time she made it back to the house, sweating and tired, the sun was setting. She threw the gloves and the end of the arrow into a bucket of bleach, unstrapped her DIY thigh quiver and leaned it and her bow against the couch. Drinking some more water she went around and closed all of the curtains fully. Only after she was sure they were all in place did she go into the bathroom and turn on the light.

Stripping out of her clothes, she turned on the bath and let it fill to half before shutting it off. Before she’d treated the well, she’d made do with a wash cloth and a bucket. As she lowered herself into the warm water, feeling the muscles of her back loosen, she felt almost luxurious.

Scrubbing at the dirt and sweat on her skin, she reflected again on what had happened yesterday. Thinking about it, it had been almost 7 months since she’d spoken to another person. She smiled slightly as she started to shampoo her hair, remembering Negan’s deep voice and the dimples of his smile.

He’d been nice, mostly. At least to her. Based on the way he’d looked at that captive, and the stern attitudes of his people, she had a feeling that wasn’t always the case.

Then she remembered Lucille and giggled quietly, looking over at her M9 where it sat in it’s holster on the floor next to the tub – always within reach. She couldn’t image naming it.

She finished up and stepped out of the tub, wrapping herself in a towel and pulling the drain. As she brushed out her hair in the medicine cabinet mirror, she frowned at it. It was getting too long, almost down to the small of her back. She hadn’t cut it since before the outbreak, and some petty part of her didn’t want to do it herself because she knew it would look awful. Instead she resorted to either braiding it or pulling it into a bun when she got up in the morning.

Pulling on a pair of underwear, some cotton shorts and a tank top, she put her dirty clothes in the basket right next to the washer and carried her Beretta with her up into the loft where her bed waited invitingly.

She knew she should eat something, but she was tired and a little afraid that she’d fall asleep on the couch while something cooked. So instead she slid beneath the sheets, resting her gun on the bedside table with the holster unstrapped in case she needed to grab it quickly. She was asleep in minutes.

“_I’ll help you make some new rules…_”

Hours later she starts out of a deep sleep, drawing in a ragged breath and staring into the darkness. Deep coffee eyes tease her memory, and she shivers as the details of the dream tickle the edge of her mind. She lays there for a moment before realizing her entire body is hot beneath the sheets. Sure that she is blushing, she sits up and tosses the sheet back.

“_…Darlin’._”

She shivers again, not at all cold, and closes her eyes as she lays back down and listens to Negan’s voice in her head.

An absolutely sinful smile is in her mind’s eye, framed by whiskers and dimples. She wonders what it would be like to kiss that mouth.

Then she thinks of his hands and how he’d never touched her. What would his hands feel like? Would they be rough from use as they ran over her thighs? Not as rough as his whiskers. She shudders as one of her hands slides down to her shorts, gliding beneath them and settling over her cotton underwear. She imagines that the fingers that slip inside them and find her body hot and wet in anticipation aren’t her own, and bites her lip against the gasp that tries to escape.

Her other hand is beneath her tank top, caressing her breasts as she thinks of him suddenly being in the bed with her. Leaning over her in that leather jacket, his head between her thighs leaving a prickling trail of bites as he travels higher and higher.

“_…whatever you wanna do darlin’_.”

He bites the wet spot in her panties, his teeth brushing against her clit and she moans lowly. Dark eyes meet hers with heavy want as her underwear come down her thighs, and without any hesitation his mouth is on her.

That clever tongue swirls her clit as firm hands raise her legs over his shoulders. Her hips buck against him, trembling already as she feels a finger brushing past her lips to her entrance. It circles in the liquid there and then presses forward.

It fills her but it isn’t what she really wants, and she whines in her throat at the image of his clothed hips slotted tightly against hers as he takes her. Imagines the leather jacket brushing her bare skin as he leans over her body, his mouth on her breasts as his hands fist in her hair and he thrusts.

“_Lina..._”

She comes with a gasp that trails off into a deep moan, her breath sharp through her parted lips. Her body shakes as she comes back to herself, alone in the loft.

_Holy shit._

She closes her eyes and swallows against her dry throat, her hands leaving her body to come to rest above her head on the pillows. Banishing the image of heated eyes and a tilted smirk, she stretches and pulls the sheet back up.

She hasn’t had the inclination to do that in…so long. Before the outbreak. She’s a little discomfited that a man she’d only known for a few hours had been the catalyst of her body’s reawakening, but she pushes the embarrassment away. No one will ever know but her, anyway.

And she feels good. Something inside her feels uncoiled, released from where it’s been locked away for so long.

Smiling, she flips onto her stomach and lazily dips back into sleep.

-

The blackness that surrounds him is complete. He doesn’t know where he is or where to go, and even though he can’t see a floor he knows he’s on his knees.

The clash of wood against bone echoes in his ears. Over and over and over. The sound of blood spattering into dirt. Somewhere, someone has lost their skull to Lucille’s thirst. Carl knows it better than he knows his own name.

A deep chuckle rolls through the darkness and into his bones.

Negan is in front of him, crouched down to meet his eye with a smile that could and has toppled kingdoms. “What’s it gonna be, kid?”

He is holding Lucille in one hand. The barbed wire drips with fresh blood, coated almost down to where his glove grips the handle.

“Whose blood is that?”

Negan’s head tilts, fierce eyes narrowing in charming cruelty as he smiles wider. “You know.”

He holds out his other hand, and Carl can’t see what’s in it. He blinks his one good eye, blinks again. And when he can see what Negan is holding out in offering, the tears rush quick and hot.

It’s the Colt.

It gleams in the darkness. The steel is bright and shining, the beautiful grain of the wooden stock so familiar and welcoming.

“Why do you have that?”

“Well?” Negan doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Lucille in one hand, Colt in the other. “Choose, kid.”

Carl sobs, giving the man a pleading look. “No.”

“Choose.”

“I _can’t_!”

“Three.”

“Please!”

“Two.”

“Don’t make me!”

“One.” Negan is fading, shrinking away into the distant shadows. Somehow Carl knows that he won’t get another chance.

With a sharp cry, he lunges forward, reaching. His hands wrap around the barbed wire and he feels Lucille’s bite sink into his palms. Feels the wet of the blood sink into the lines of his skin. Feels the wood solid and steady in his grip.

Negan is laughing, his eyes bright with pride as he leans forward and clasps Carl’s shoulder. His grip is crushing. The Colt is gone, lost to the darkness. “I knew it.”

Soundlessly, Carl’s opens his eye and realizes he is in his bed. He is clutching his pillow beneath his head with both hands, and the surface is wet with tears. He stares at the wall blankly as the dream shrinks away into the depths of his mind.

“Carl?” He blinks, and wipes his face before turning over to look at the door. Tanya is there, holding a sleeping Judith in her arms. He realizes that the sunlight coming into his window means its early morning, and she was the reason he’d woken up. “Negan wants you, better get dressed.”

He nods and sits up, and she pulls his door closed as she leaves. He sits there for a moment, dazed and still tired, before he makes himself move.

He washes and dresses quickly, and eats a piece of toast slathered with grape jelly as he walks down the hall to Negan’s room. A knock gets a gruff reply to enter, and when he opens the door he finds the man sitting on his dark leather couch, looking over the inventory and points books that he appraises every day.

They’re kept by someone else, a woman that used to be an accountant. But she leaves them for him to look over each day, and Carl has never seen Negan avoid doing it.

“Morning kid,” he doesn’t look up as he speaks, flipping a page and continuing to read. “Sleep good?”

Every inch of Carl’s skin tingles as he sits down in the chair opposite Negan, and he wants badly to itch his palms together. “Uh, yeah.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Carl can’t help but stare at Lucille where she leans casually against the couch leather. It had just been a dream. He knows that, but somehow seeing the bat clean and shining glumly is more reassuring than it should be.

“Alright!” The books are tossed onto the glass coffee table with a light slap, and Negan is standing with Lucille in hand. “Come on.”

Carl follows behind him like normal, his gaze flashing repeatedly to Lucille as she swung merrily up to Negan’s shoulder and sat there, shifting slightly with ever step.

People get down on one knee as they pass, heads bowed to Negan’s authority. Carl knows that for the most part he doesn’t even see them, can tell by how fast he’s walking that his mind is somewhere else.

Then he realizes that he should have known where they were going when they get to the stairs that lead down into the sub ground levels, and Negan leads him to the cells.

_‘It’s our moment in the sun_

_And it’s only just begun…’_

There’s a guard down the hall, a woman Carl doesn’t know. She keeps her eyes forward as Negan passes her.

They stop outside of the Danvers man’s cell, and Negan turns to look at him appraisingly for several long moments as the music continues. Carl tries to block it out, and stops himself from blinking as he stares back. Inside his mind is racing, trying to prepare for whatever Negan might do to the man in the cell.

Finally Negan smiles, and Carl watches confusedly as he pulls that lethal serrated knife from it’s sheath at his hip. He flips it in his gloved hand, and holds it out to Carl handle first.

It’s not Lucille, and it’s not the Colt. But something in Carl’s stomach freezes and goes heavy at the similarity. He should be concerned at the fact that his hand doesn’t quiver as he takes the knife, but he’s more grateful than anything.

“What…what do you want me to do?” He asks, just loudly enough to be heard over the music as he holds the knife in front of him.

The wink he gets in reply makes something quiver up his spine. “Just do as I tell you kid. Now, shut the music off.”

_‘Yeah, we got a front row-’_

He breathes a little easier with the music off, and walks back over to Negan as Lucille bangs out a greeting on the door. Now that the music is off, it is almost too quiet. As if the walls are waiting.

Negan unlocks and throws back the door, and the man revealed inside is in a far sorrier state than he was three days ago.

He’s pale with fear as he stares up at them. His cheeks are wet with tears and the rest of him is wet with what has to be a cold sweat. He is in the back left corner, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest. His hands shake as he grips the fabric of his pants.

“Hello jackass,” Negan greets him with a predatory smirk as he leans against the doorframe. “Sleep well?”

The man doesn’t reply, just shakes harder. Carl wonders if he even can speak.

Negan seems to be prepared for no reply. He brings Lucille down and points to the floor in front of where he and Carl stand. “Here, prick. Right now.”

The man doesn’t move, and his mouth drops open in a soundless gasp as he blinks repeatedly.

Carl glances sideways up at Negan’s face, his hand tightening on the knife. His leader’s eyes have narrowed but his grin hasn’t slipped a fraction as he stares down at their captive. “You do _not_ want me to tell you again.”

Something inside the prisoner breaks at the obvious threat in those words, and he stumbles forward and crawls to kneel in front of them.

“What’s your name?”

The man’s throat bobs, and he leans back slightly as his body wavers. Now that he’s more in the light Carl can see the dark rings around his eyes from exhaustion, and that his jaw has gone black and blue. He probably hasn’t gotten more than an hour or two of sleep in days. Carl stands straighter and tries not to remember what that feels like.

“R-R-Ron.”

“Well, _Ronny_,” Lucille comes to rest an inch from Ron’s face, and his eyes widen and nearly cross as he stares at it. “You are going to tell me why Danvers suddenly found his fucking backbone.”

Ron stares fixedly at Lucille, as if he knows she would rather be soaking up his brain matter than catching his spittle. “He didn’t. I-it isn’t him. He’s not in charge anymore.”

“Why?”

“He…He’s dead. Got bit on a supply run.”

A heavy sigh gives away how annoyed Negan is to hear this. Carl thinks furiously. This explained everything.

Danvers Militia had been so named after the man that ran it, Jacob Danvers. He’d been in charge since before Negan had taken them over almost nine months ago. He’d been a tough old man, but he’d given into Negan right away and pickups had gone like clockwork ever since.

“I see. So, who’s the pain in the ass that wants to measure his dick up to mine?”

Ron blinks at that, confused for a moment as his eyes dance up to Negan’s face then back down. “S-Sean’s in charge now. H-He doesn’t think we should have to give you anything. He says we’ve done enough.”

This was a problem. Danvers was a sizeable settlement, almost a hundred people total. If this Sean guy had them riled up, thinking they could fight Negan there were going to be a lot of bodies dropping. Carl blinks and pushes away old memories of bodies in a suburban street, blood on the cement. His grip on the knife is white-knuckled.

“Oh boy, sounds like somebody’s grown some fucking balls.” Negan’s still smiling, but there’s that hard edge to his voice that Carl knows. It means blood. “Where has he moved men to?”

Ron blinks, and then shakes his head. “I-I-I don’t know what you mean. We’re all still at the fort.”

Negan ‘tsks’, and Lucille is pulled away from Ron’s face. “_Ronny_, I’m disappointed. You were doing so well.”

“No, I’m telling the t-truth! We’re at the fort like always.”

It doesn’t convince Carl, so it definitely doesn’t convince Negan. “Kid, cut a finger off.”

Carl blinks, and his eye goes down to where Ron’s hands are clenched on his knees. Bile rises in his throat and he looks away, up at his leader. “What?”

Negan is already watching him, his smile slowly fading until he is serious again. “You wanted to be here. You wanted to be involved, _right_? This is being here. _Cut_ a _goddamned_ finger off.”

He’s crouching before he even realizes it, ignoring Ron’s cries and struggles as he grabs the man’s right hand with a strength he didn’t know he’d had. He forces it flat on the cement and brings the knife down hard and fast.

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…_

He almost doesn’t even see Ron’s thumb come off, the bone glistening and the blood spurting as he pulls the knife away. There’s a buzzing in his mind that overlaps the man’s screams of pain and the entertained laugh that comes from above him.

_You make me happy, when skies are grey…_

“Now,” Negan begins again once his laugh has tapered off. “_Where_ does he have men?”

Carl stays crouched, watching the blood gush across the cement. It soaks into Ron’s pants and then leaks across the floor to Carl’s shoes. He doesn’t really hear Ron’s replies, but a couple minutes later when Negan tells him to cut something else off, he does. Rob’s left ear leaves his head almost too easily, the serrated blade separating the skin like room temperature butter.

_You’ll never know dear, how much I love you…_

By the time Negan has the answers he wanted, Ron is missing another finger and Lucille has crushed his left wrist. He’s lying in the puddle his blood has made, and although tears cover his face he doesn’t make a sound.

The guard is sent for Doctor Carson, and Negan closes the door of the cell easily. Then he throws an arm over Carl’s shoulders and they walk away to the tune of that slow, two note whistle he likes.

It isn’t until Negan pulls him to a stop outside the door to his room that Carl realizes he’s still holding the knife. Negan holds a hand out for it and Carl looks down at it for a long moment before passing it over. It’s teeth are blood coated and glistening, and Carl realizes it’s all over him too. Bright red dots forming a constellation across his body.

“Carl,” a gloved hand comes to rest on his shoulder, firm and grounding. He blinks and looks up. “You did good. I knew you could do it.”

Those devilish eyes are warm as they look at him, and then Negan smiles. It’s the proud smile that Carl doesn’t get very often, and something in his chest pulses hot and spreads inside him.

“Go shower, kid. Then you can help Frankie with Judith for the afternoon.”

An hour later, Carl sits with the lovely redhead on a bench outside, on the part of the grounds where there’s trees and grass. Judith is playing in the grass, her curls moving in the wind and a little smile stretching her chubby baby cheeks.

He rubs his eye, confused at the lack of tears, and smiles back at her.

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hate me yet?  
I did say this story was going to be a slow burn.  
And listen I'm sorry about Carl but I had to. I feel bad for the kid but I did say, this is Negan's world. Everyone else just lives in it.  
Anywho, I'd like to know what you think. Next chapter coming soon!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of Negan being Negan in this chapter, as a warning.

It’s a whole week since the day she broke her rules when Lina finally ventures out again. This time she does take her car. She’s going into a city, and a car is much better protection than her bike. It’s early morning, still dark out when she dresses, braids her hair, and gathers her weapons and her pack and leaves.

She munches on breakfast bars and strawberries from her garden while she drives. A little over an hour later she gets off the highway and enters the town she’s been headed towards. She hasn’t been here for two months, and the boxes and bags she has in the back of her Rav4 is an indication of how much she’d like to go another two months without having to make another trip.

She parks at the end of a long street of shops, eying the dead that are shambling around on the street. There’s only six, and two are already headed towards her car. She frowns at them, wondering how many are in the shops that she plans to try and loot from.

She gets out of the car and shoulders her pack, which is almost entirely empty in preparation for today. Then she grabs her bow and closes the car door as quietly as she can, taking stock of her weapons.

A knife in her right boot against her ankle, another in the sheath at her wrist. Her Beretta strapped to her right thigh and her quiver to her left. She has a flashlight at her hip, hooked into the belt loop of her black jeans. Her dark grey jean jacket covers the tank top she has on underneath, and she stuffs her keys into the inside pocket and zips it closed for safe keeping.

Arrows take care of the two walkers that had gotten closer to her, and after gathering them and wiping off the ends she slips into the back alley behind the shops and goes to the first door. Luck is on her side and it’s unlocked. She edges it open cautiously, avoiding any possible sound as she slips inside. The store is dark, of course. Just a bit of grey light leaking through the front windows as the sun starts to come up. She moves slowly, somewhat crouched as she listens for the dead.

Of course, because the door had been unlocked, there’s two walkers inside. Probably store employees or something. They are bumping against the glass in the front, over and over again. She takes them down with her knife, and shakes her head at the nametags on their shirts.

The store itself is full of electronics, most of which are useless to her now. They are for computers or cell phones or fancy additions to cars, and not anything she can use. She’s not handy with electronics. It took her an embarrassingly long time to get the solar panels working on the cottage, and she still has trouble starting the generator when she needs it. Part of the reason she doesn’t use the Toyota much is because she’s worried what she’ll do if something happens to it.

But she’s come here for a reason.

The watch batteries give her an irrational amount of joy as she takes several packs, and then breaks one open and puts it into the watch she’d brought with her. Strapping the watch onto her left wrist, she smiles down at it.

It’s a fancy little thing, with satellite timekeeping to ensure its accuracy. She watches the hands spin for a few seconds, and then nods. Six thirty four am. Having the certainty feels good.

She also takes some lightbulbs, two dozen packs of batteries of varying sizes, and a few spare power cords.

She slips back into the alley and moves on. The next door is to a restaurant, and she doesn’t even bother going in, just moves on to the next. This one’s door is locked. She frowns and pulls out her trip wire from her right pocket. It takes her nearly five minutes – kneeling on the hard cement and cursing quietly – but she gets it unlocked.

She huffs when she opens it to find that it’s just a boutique. Clothes line the walls and there is jewelry under the glass countertop. She grabs two black long sleeved shirts, a couple pairs of leggings, and moves on.

Three hours later, she’s gone through all the shops on the block and has filled up two boxes worth of things she can use one way or another at home. She climbs back into her car and drives away, heading towards the neighborhood of houses a few blocks over.

She’s been down several of these streets already in the past, so she drives to the end of a street she hasn’t visited and parks in front of a single story home with no car in the driveway.

Taking her key out of the ignition, she sits and stares while she sips some water.

She _hates_ going through houses. There are almost always walkers to kill, and not always adults. And she doesn’t like the feeling she gets, digging through old lives and taking what she wants like some sort of reaper. But it has to be done, so she grits her teeth and gets out of the car.

She’s just gotten done going through the second house – having found a great stash of canned goods, and a shit ton of toilet paper that had left her grinning – when she looks up and frowns at the sky. There are heavy clouds in the east, probably still a few hours away but they have a promise of rain.

Rain is a strange thing, in the apocalypse. On one hand, bad weather was a royal pain to deal with. She didn’t like driving in it, it took longer and she didn’t like being out after dark. On the other, rain did something strange to the walkers.

They were always slower to respond to anything that would normally attract them instantly. She wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling it was mostly the sound.

A heavy rain could drown out a lot of sounds, and it seemed to confuse them. A lot of times they would just stand still, turning around over and over as if trying to figure out what was happening.

It made scavenging around them a lot easier.

She decides to take a chance and keeps looting. She has the car, not her bike, so getting home in rain won’t be too bad. She’ll just drive slow, no big deal.

It pays off. She has two new cases of 9mm bullets to show for her efforts, along with a box filled almost entirely with medical supplies by the time she’s done. She also finds more canned goods and some new linens still in the packaging. She walks out of the last house on the row with the linens stuffed into her pack to find the rain has started.

Turning in the direction of her car, she pauses mid-step on the driveway.

There are walkers in the street. She stops counting at ten and watches as they shuffle slowly down the cement in herd formation.

Eyes wide, she slowly backs up until she’s at the front door, closing it softly behind her. She sets the bag down and pulls her bow forward, knocking an arrow as she watches the street through the decorative panes of glass.

The rain is falling but not heavy, not enough to impede them. She stays stock still, every muscle of her body clenched as she holds her bow ready. Her eyes dart to the watch on her wrist, and she fights the trembling of her arms as the minutes tick by.

Nearly a half hour later, it has been a few minutes since the last one passed out of sight. Slowly she eases open the door, shouldering her pack and stepping out into the rain. The herd – a small one, thankfully – is passed and the rain is picking up. Three stragglers are standing in the street, clumped together. She’ll have to pass them to get to her car.

She stays on the other side of the street from them, cutting through front yards until she is back to the car. Only after she has thrown her pack into the passenger seat does she turn back to the dead.

Creeping closer, she realizes what has caught their attention and shakes her head incredulously.

It’s a garbage can’s lid. The metal kind, it sat upside down on the cement. The rain is hitting it hard enough to make a tinny pitter patter and the walkers are captivated.

The first two go down to her arrows, but the third is too close by the time she can focus on it. She backs up a couple paces and pulls her knife, and as the blade goes through its rotten eye socket she tries to ignore how close its teeth are to her arm.

Turning away from the bodies, she heads back to the car. Opening the back, she turns to the four separate 5 gallon gas cans she has brought along. She needs the gasoline, both for the car and generator at home. Picking one up, she heads over to the nearest car and begins trying to siphon gas.

It’s annoying work on a normal day, and in the rain it becomes absolutely miserable. Between the siphon and keeping her head on a swivel for walkers, by the time she has the car’s gas tank and all the cans filled she is drenched head to toe and exhausted. Shivering, she lugs the last can back to the car in the dark, stores it and throws herself into the driver’s seat.

She starts the car and pulls away from the curb, mumbling to herself in frustration and tiredness. She doesn’t notice the eyes watching her from the second story window across the street.

-

Sometimes, Carl wonders what might have happened if Negan hadn’t won.

He used to think about it a lot. It was in the shadow of every thought for weeks. Now, it’s more rare. Mostly just when he see’s something that reminds him of Alexandria.

Today, that something is Enid.

It’s been a little over three months since Negan has last paid a visit to Hilltop personally. It’s closer to Simon’s outpost, so usually he handles the pickups. But Simon had been watching Danvers for a week now, surrounding it with his people. And Carl knows that Negan likes to appear on pickups unexpectedly. It keeps Gregory off balance.

In the last year, the Hilltop had expanded. Negan had reinforced his breadbasket with workers, a group of guards made up of Saviors and a new set of walls that left room for large fields to grow more crops in. It was less of a separate community, and more of an outpost all it’s own these days. And the pickups were mostly just to take all of the surplus crops to the warehouse to be stored.

As they rolled through the gates, Carl sat in the passenger’s seat of the black jeep that Negan had taken to using since his favorite truck was shredded with bullets. Negan was driving and Arat was sitting in the back, that favorite shotgun of hers resting on her knees.

They stop in front of the mansion and Negan hops out whistling, taking Lucille with him. Carl follows him quickly, his hand brushing down to the Glock 9 in it’s holster on his leg as he trots up the steps to keep up.

Negan had given it to him that morning before they’d left the Sanctuary. He’d held it out wordlessly, a speculative light in his eyes. Carl almost hadn’t taken it, but finally he’d nodded and strapped it on wordlessly.

Arat ran ahead and threw open the door to the entry hall, entering with her shotgun held in parade position and her eyes sweeping the room.

The only person waiting for them is Gregory, in one of his grey suits like he was trying to pretend the world hadn’t collapsed around him. He has his hands clasped together and is wearing a nervous smile that he probably thinks looks pleased. Carl does his best not to grimace at the man.

He’s more of a figurehead now than he’s ever been, with Saviors posted at the Hilltop day and night. Carl is convinced that Simon keeps him around purely because he enjoys toying with him. Negan doesn’t seem to care, as long as the supplies keep pouring in.

The most annoying part of the man is that he continues to act as though he’s in charge, even though he has to know that he isn’t in any way.

He greets Negan pleasantly and immediately starts espousing about how delighted he is to be paid a visit. The fact that he stumbles over his words at every cutting remark Negan gives him in reply, his eyes following Lucille sharply, makes Carl grin. For the most part Carl tunes out their conversation, staring around at the artwork on the walls and the fine furniture with distaste.

“Kid,” Negan’s low voice breaks him out of his thoughts. “Go check on my trucks.”

It’s an excuse to get him out of the room, and he wonders what it is that Negan wants to say to Gregory without any other ears to hear it. But he nods and ducks back out of the house, Arat close behind him.

The trucks are only half full, so he stands on the lowest step with his arms folded and watches the progress. Arat leaves, mumbling about going to check on the Savior’s posted here. He barely notices her go, focusing on the weight of the gun on his leg. It’s been over a year since he’d carried one. Usually when he left Sanctuary he just brought a knife.

He’s still frowning in thought when a light pressure touches his arm. “Carl?”

Enid looks lovely. Her skin is sun drenched, her hair is long and loose, and she smiles widely at him. He blinks, and then smiles back. “Enid, hi.”

She holds out a small basket filled with apples, still smiling. “These are part of what we’re loading up. Don’t they look great? You should try one.”

He doesn’t tell her that he has three apples just like these waiting back in his room. She doesn’t need to know. Instead he smiles again and takes one, biting into it.

“How are you?” He asks between bites. “How is it here?”

“It’s normal, mostly. Well…actually I’m doing something new.”

He raises his eyebrows and pretends not to see her look at where his right eye used to be. He knows it’s healed, it has been for months. But it’s a startling scar now, and his hair is far too short to cover it. “Oh yeah, what?”

“Well, we have this new doctor named Siddiq, and I’ve been learning stuff from him. I really like doing it. It…reminds me of Denise.”

He resists flinching and nods. “That’s good.”

“Yeah! So what’s new with you? How’s Judith?”

It’s been so long since he’s seen her, and he doesn’t know how to put into words the things he’s seen in that time. Or more recently, the things he’s done. She feels a world apart. So he shrugs and looks back to the trucks. “Everything’s fine. I read a lot, and Negan’s helped me get way better at darts.”

Her smile fades and she gives him a concerned look. He’s sure she can’t imagine spending more than a few minutes in Negan’s presence. And those few minutes would probably be filled with terror for her. He’s glad she’ll never have to worry about that, but he wishes he could explain what it had felt like to hit the bullseye with a dart for the first time since he’d lost his eye. The feeling that had swelled into his throat as Negan had pulled the dart out and told him casually to do it again, as though he’d known all the time that he could. Just thinking of it makes something tighten in his chest.

“That’s…great.”

He nods. “And Judith’s fine. Getting bigger every day. She’ll probably start talking soon.”

Enid opens her mouth to say something else, but stops as whistling sounds above them. She kneels beside Carl as Negan walks down the steps, and Carl is sure that the Hilltop workers that had been loading the trucks are on their knees in the dirt.

Lucille swings casually in an upward motion and everyone rises back up. “Why aren’t my trucks full yet?”

Enid is staring hard at the ground, and Carl notices the workers at the trucks speed up noticeably.

Gregory’s nasally voice sounds from behind them. “Well, I’m sure they’re almost done.”

Carl examines the way Negan turns and watches Gregory. He doesn’t speak, just looks at Gregory for a long moment. He’s turned enough away that Carl can’t read his eyes, but he wishes he could. Instead he examines the way Negan’s head is thrown slightly back, his body leaning to the side as he props himself up against Lucille. Even the air around him seems focused down to a sharp point.

Carl wants to learn _that_.

He feels his lips twitch into a grin as he turns back to the trucks, shaking his head in amusement at how pale Gregory had gone. Instead what he sees is Enid, staring at him with a furrowed brow. He drops the smile, but it’s too late. She shakes her head at him, those bright eyes gone cloudy with confusion, and steps back to the trucks.

He watches her go and sucks in a breath. Refusing to watch her, he lets his eye focus on Arat as she talks to a group of Saviors a hundred yards away. They’re laughing about something, one of the men is gesticulating with his hands above his head. Take away the guns strapped to their bodies and they look so normal. Just a group of friends hanging out for a moment while they can.

He wishes there were more people his age around. There’s three at the Sanctuary that are within a year or two of him, but their parents are workers and so are they. They all go wide eyed and quiet anytime he has tried to talk to them, so he’s stopped trying.

The trucks will be loaded within a few minutes, and Carl doesn’t bother listening to Gregory’s parting remarks. He throws his apple core aside and hops into the jeep to sit there, looking out the window at nothing. Enid walks by, and he wants to glance away as she looks at him but he can’t. They stare for a prolonged moment, and he can’t tell what emotion is on her face when she finally nods and turns away. Whatever it is, it makes his stomach drop.

He looks at his lap, at the gun holstered to his leg. The last time he’d had one had been in Alexandria, the day they’d tried to hold their own against Negan and the Saviors.

He remembers Rosita’s face, when she’d pressed that trigger and the explosives _hadn’t_ gone off.

And later, after the fight they’d all kneeled with guns to their heads. Carl will remember the look in his father’s eyes forever, when Negan had gone behind Carl and prepared to swing through his head.

He doesn’t really remember much of what happened after. There is the long drawn out moment when he waits for Lucille to cave into his skull, and then a pleased laugh from Negan that makes something in Rick’s eyes change.

After that there’s a lot of gunfire and movement. The Alexandrians are either killed where they kneel or loaded into trucks. A black bag is put over his head and when it’s taken off he’s already in a cell. To this day, his mind still has a hard time putting together the time he’d spent inside of it. Negan had told him later it was three days, but when he looks back on it – pushing aside the emotions it summons and looking at it as clearly as he can – it sometimes seems short and sometimes long.

He’d been out of the cell for a little over two months when he finally learned that the Hilltop and the Kingdom had tried to help them. Enid had whispered it to him on the first trip outside the Sanctuary he’d been allowed on.

They’d come too late. The way Enid told it, by the time they’d arrived all that had been left was bodies in the dirt, struck through the head so they couldn’t turn. Feeling defeated, they’d gone back to the Hilltop and the Kingdom and tried to think of what to do next.

Negan had never given them the chance.

The cab shakes a little as the driver’s side door swings open and Negan is in. Carl turns to see Negan eyeing him sideways, gloved hand propped up on top of the steering wheel. The other comes up to rub at the whiskers around his mouth. Carl blinks up at him.

The gloved hand moves, and suddenly Lucille is held in his direction, handle first. “Hold this.”

The handle is smooth in his hand when he takes the bat wordlessly. He’s held it plenty of times by now, and he lays it across his lap gently so the barbed wire doesn’t catch in his jeans. He lets his eye run down the patterns of the wood grain, feels the smooth vibrations of the jeep accelerating down the road, and after a while Enid and the cell return to the far back of his mind.

When he finally turns back to the window, the sun is on the wrong side of the truck. “Where are we going?”

“Hmph,” ahead of them, the supply trucks keep going straight as Negan turns the jeep down a different road. “Come on kid. What, you thought I gave you a gun for a Hilltop pick up?”

Carl frowns, not sure what to think. The jeep speeds up, and Carl turns in his seat to gape out his window. They speed past a long row of vehicles on the side of the road, Saviors packing into the backs of trucks and hopping into jeeps, SUV’s and cars. There must be at least thirty vehicles, he marvels. He doesn’t even try to guess how many people there are inside them.

The realization washes over him as a semi accelerates to pass them. It doesn’t have a trailer, and there is metal plating attached to the front, over the grill. Eugene’s idea, no doubt.

They’re going to Danvers. Today, now. Negan is making his move. Something hot and unsteady races down his spine. It feels an awful lot like excitement. He knows he’s grinning as he turns to look back at Negan.

“And I’m going?”

“Yep!” His leader’s grin is wide as he chuckles. “Bout damn time you started earnin’ your keep, don’t you think?”

Carl knows it’s a joke, but he likes the idea. Doing something productive, something other than reading and looking at inventory counts. So he nods, his hand tightening on Lucille. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Something calculating flashes in those dark eyes as they narrow slightly. “Yes you are.”

The Danvers Militia calls a courthouse and county jail their home. It was a large set of buildings surrounded by wide parking lots, and fields beyond that.

As they got closer, Carl examined the walls they’d constructed. It was sheets of scrap metal mostly, even some of those large metal traffic signs from the highway. Welded together and taller than a house, Carl couldn’t even tell where the gates were.

Now he understood the semi.

They were maybe two minutes out when suddenly another long row of vehicles merged with them from a side road. A black pickup revved up alongside them on Negan’s side, and Simon grinned and waved cheerily from the passenger window.

Carl set Lucille next to Negan and drew his gun.

The walls were looming close, and the semi in front of them was storming forward. Its diesel engine roared as it announced the charge.

It hit the wall with a thunderous noise. Metal and sparks flew as what had been the gates were blown inward. The jeep lurched into high gear as Negan sped after it. Carl flipped the safety on his gun.

The jeep spun slightly as Negan hit the brakes, coming to a stop just behind the semi. Vehicles poured through the gates around them, and Carl watched as things were hurled from open car windows. They landed, and suddenly the air started to thicken.

Smoke grenades. 

The smoke was thick within a minute. It sat like soup around them, so dense he couldn’t even see the semi in front of them.

“Alright kid,” Negan’s eyes were ablaze with some strange mix of fury and exhilaration. “Now it starts.”

He opened his door and was gone, Lucille with him. Heart pounding, Carl scrambled after him into the murk.

He couldn’t hear any gunfire or voices, just the noise of the vehicles still running. Quickly he made his way to the front of the jeep, and after a moment the semi coalesced in front of him. He slipped around to the left side, gun tight in his grip.

From ahead of him, a two note whistle sounded. Long and pure, it echoed in the smoke.

He froze as his heart leapt into his throat.

The whistle came again, and this time it was copied by ten more. Then again, and so many sounded with it that his ears rang.

Blinking away memories of that whistle and an ambush in a misty clearing, he stepped forward. The whistling continued, guiding him on until he was able to make out a familiar figure in front of him. Tall, lean, a baseball bat slung over one shoulder.

Negan waited alone in the haze.

Carl stopped a few steps behind him, gun at the ready in both hands as he wondered what Negan was waiting for. He heard the clap of three gunshots ahead of them, where the buildings must have been. Why weren’t they storming the place?

When the smoke finally began to clear, he got his answer.

The whistles cut off abruptly. Ahead of them, people began to appear. First only a few, and then dozens more. The people of Danvers stepped forward and then sank to their knees, a wall of Saviors following them out of the old courthouse with guns drawn. Simon came with them, hauling a young man in his grip with blood matted in his short blonde hair. He dragged him past the crowd of people kneeling and threw him to the cement, a few paces in front of where Negan waited quietly.

“He says he’s the one in charge now. Says Sean isn’t here.” The way Simon spits to the side and the dark marbles of his eyes roll back towards the man on his knees betrays his thoughts on the matter.

A low hum quiets everything, and Carl can’t take his eyes off of Negan as he steps forward.

“That so?” Lucille comes down and rests her barbed wire end against the man’s shoulder. Carl gives him points for being straight-faced, even though he can see the beads of sweat from here. “Where is he?”

“He left,” the man gulps. “Two days ago. I told him to get out.”

Negan’s eyebrows arch, and he laughs. “_You_ told him, huh?” His amusement dies and his smile hardens. “And who the hell are you?”

“Edward. Jacob was my uncle.”

Negan’s lower lip bulged as his tongue ran along the inside, and then he stepped forward and crouched down. Edward leaned back, something twitching in his eyes. Carl knew that feeling.

“Where is that pencil thin prick now?”

“I don’t know.” Edward’s eyes were wide, his pupils tiny pinpricks as he stared unlinking into Negan’s face.

Negan nodded slowly, and then his eyebrows quirked and he stood back up. “Okay, Ed. _Okay_. Carl?”

He should’ve known. He should’ve _known_.

His hands tightened on the Glock and he stepped forward with a nod as Negan turned to him. Once he was leaning over him, dark eyed and dark intentioned, Carl leaned in to hear his next words.

“Pick one.”

It was loud enough for Edward to hear. He tried to stand with a splutter, and only Simon grabbing his shoulder and throwing him back down with a sneer kept him on the cement.

“No, please. It doesn’t have to be this way!”

“Oh, but it does Ed.” Negan leaned back towards him, Lucille coming to rest in front of his face.

“None of us wanted this! Sean and his people left two days ago. Everyone here just want things to go back to the way it was. No harm, no foul.”

“NO HARM?”

Every muscle in Carl’s body stiffened as Negan’s ferocious roar echoed over the parking lot. He was still, a tall and imposing statue as he glowered down at Edward. No one moved. It almost felt like no one even breathed.

“Killing my people on a pickup unprovoked – that ‘no harm’ to you? Holy hell, Ed.” His voice was amused, and his smirk was tilted as he shook his head. “I’m disappointed. I thought I’d made myself pretty damn clear, when we all first met.”

Edward was still and quiet. Carl wasn’t sure he could even speak.

“But I’m an agreeable guy, so let’s _try_ _again_.” He sounds tired and let down, but those white teeth flash in a warning snarl as Negan’s tongue rolls slowly over his bottom lip. “Carl, pick one.”

He doesn’t even see a face as he steps to the crowd and pulls someone from it. Dark hair and a panicked voice is the only impression he gets as he purposefully keeps his eye above their head. There is pleading as he hauls them forward and pushes them to the ground next to Edward. From the victim, from the crowd, and from Edward himself.

It cuts off raggedly when Lucille swings down with a splintering crack.

“Hoo-ee, look at that. You have got one thick skull! Wow, makin’ Lucile work for it!” Another lunge, and the crunch that follows gives away the power behind the swing.

Carl doesn’t look. He watches the crowd instead. Skin goes pale and eyes go wide as it really hits them. Tears fall. A few turn away or squeeze their eyes shut. Mothers cover their children’s faces.

The thwump and chomp of the bat continues, and when it finally stops Carl doesn’t have to see the pulpy mere of red on the pavement to know that Lucille’s work is done.

Negan is laughing, there’s nothing he loves more than giving Lucille her due. He paces in front of Edward and flicks the bat. Blood and bits of skull bone spray out in a fan of droplets, right over Edward’s head and into the crowd. There are whimpers and retching.

“Tell me somethin’, Ed. When dear old Uncle Jacob died, how did Sean become the guy? Why wasn’t it you from the jump?” Lucille spins and leaps between his hands. “Did ya need to wait for your balls to drop first?”

The look Edward gives Negan is dread and disgust rolled together as he trembles in place. His eyes fall to the stain on the pavement and a shudder goes visibly through his body.

“Sean only got here a few months ago. Him and fourteen people that had been together on the road. My uncle,” Edward’s voice breaks and his eyes fall to Negan’s boots. “Jacob wasn’t sure about him but they were good with guns and scavenging so they stayed. When Jacob died he took over. I-I tried to stop him-”

“Fourteen men, huh?” Negan hums and turns away from Edward to look over the crowd. “Four_teen_.”

Negan paces, slow and unconcerned as Lucille swings up to his shoulder. A rivulet of blood leaks down the bat and over his gloved hand, dribbles onto the leather jacket. If Negan notices, he doesn’t care.

Finally an irritated sigh leaks out of him, and he turns back to Edward with a shake of his head. “Hell Ed, my people have killed more than fourteen in the last week. Now how many of your fine, upstanding people went with him?”

Everyone in the crowd went still, eyes glued to the leader of the Saviors. Probably wondering if they would pay for their friend’s choices with more lives. It was a valid fear. Edward was pale and the blood in his hair was starting to drip down an ear.

“A few more than thirty,” he whispers, his eyes squeezing shut as he leans forward onto his hands on the pavement.

An airy whistle is Negan’s response. “Oh my, Sean must be feelin’ large and in charge!” He shakes his head and makes a gesture back towards the vehicles. “Okay Ed, I’ll tell you what.”

Ron is pulled up beside Negan by two men, and Carl catalogues every bruise, wound and missing body part all over again in his mind. Doctor Carson had done his work, and there were bandages on his hands and head. He looked pale and out of sorts, his eyes unsteady as he practically collapsed on the cement.

A cold fist forms in Carl’s gut, and he swallows and tightens his grip on the gun.

“I brought a present back for you, just to show you how much I care. Ronny here tried to kill more of my men. And do I fucking kill him? Nope!”

When Negan smiles widely enough, it’s possible for Carl to see how he probably looked once. Whatever he was before. It’s always just a flash, and then real life comes back.

“I bring him back to his good friends for some TLC!”

The Danvers people stare at Ron as though they’ve never seen him before. Wide eyed with disbelief and horror as they realize what the bandages cover. Edward doesn’t look at him, his eyes fix on Negan and don’t look away. He barely even blinks. Somewhere behind him, a woman is sobbing.

“Thank you.”

Carl blinks in surprise, and he looks back to Negan sharply. His eyes are narrow and the corners of his lips are twitching. Finally he crouches back down, his face so close to Edward’s that surely they were able to see the veins in each other’s eyes.

“Now there’s a start.” He speaks lowly, just enough that you’d have to strain to hear the words. Carl does exactly that, and he’s sure that everyone else does too. “Now you tell me Ed. If I come back next week, is my shit gonna be waitin’ at the gate?”

“Yes,” Edward rushes to reply. “Yes.”

Negan nods slowly. “You work for me?”

“Yes.”

“You provide for me?”

“Yes.”

“You _belong_ to _me_?”

“Yes.”

Negan ‘tsks’ and Lucille rises up until her bloody surface sits between their chins. “Say it.”

Edward’s eyelids flutter and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows heavily. He forces the words out like punches. “We belong to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, boring scavenging Lina in this chapter again. But things have to build up in their own time.  
I gotta be honest writing Carl's perspective is really fun right now. Not sure how messed up that makes me but MOVING RIGHT ALONG!  
I'd love to know your thoughts, any feedback is welcome. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if I made it super clear last chapter – after all Carl’s memory isn’t exactly the most reliable. The canon divergence of this story happens from Season 7, Episode 16. Think of the moment when Shiva pounces on one of the Saviors and the battle turns – yeah, that never happens here. Negan wins.  
New chapter below – it’s a long one! :)

There are days when all Negan wants is a good glass of scotch.

The time and resources spent on Danvers hadn’t been a waste, even though driving back to the Sanctuary in the rain was a pain in the ass. Danvers was back in line, Simon could go back to his outpost, and Carl was making progress every day.

That kid never failed to rise to the challenge.

Now he could deal with the fun shit. Sean. He smiles just at the thought of finding him, and looks over at Lucille in anticipation.

When they pull into the Sanctuary it’s a mad scramble to park the trucks and get in out of the rain. Negan tosses Arat the keys and watches Carl go inside. He’d been quiet on the way back, watching the rain.

After giving his orders to his Saviors for the night he goes into the factory level, brushing past workers as they kneel. He pushes back his soaking hair, trotting up the stairs to his room. A hot shower sounds damn good. After that a drink. Judith should be asleep by now, that means Frankie will be free for some deep tissue therapy and a happy ending.

He knocks on her door with Lucille and then opens it, leaning bodily into the room. She’s in bed already, in a black babydoll she knows he likes. She looks up from the magazine she’s reading and he sees the flicker in her eyes right before she smiles.

He grins in response and murmurs “ten minutes.”

Carl’s door is already closed, but he can see the light on behind it. Reading again, probably. He’d given the kid a break and let him choose some comics yesterday. He’d earned it.

There’s a sandwich and kettle chips in Tupperware on his coffee table. He’s devoured it after his shower and is finally pouring himself a glass when Frankie knocks.

She’s still in that babydoll, her hair is brushed and it gleams like burnished copper. He leans back into the cushions of his leather couch, his legs widening as he watches her close the door. She walks over to him slowly, and he eyes the sway of her hips as he leers at her.

“Miss me?”

Her lips tilt to one side as she smooths into his lap, her legs wide across his hips. Her hands glide over his bare torso and come to rest on his shoulders, those talented fingers he likes so much kneading his muscles.

“Of course,” she tells him with a flutter of her eyelashes.

He grins back and digs his fingers into her hair, pulling her in for a deep kiss. The other slides up her smooth thigh until it meets soft cloth. Then he skates his fingers over her torso, up until he meets the sweet give of her breasts. When she moans softly into his mouth, he knows it’s the first genuine thing she’s given him all day.

He doesn’t mind. She chooses to be with him, and he chooses to use her.

He forgoes the thought of a massage. By the time she slides down to the floor in between his legs, her fingers plucking at the button of his pants, he’s hard and waiting for attention.

It isn’t until she’s teasing him with her tongue and he slides his hand into her hair that the image of it being dark honey instead of copper flits through his mind. His cock twitches in avid interest, and when Amber looks up at him with a pleased smile the eyes he sees are wider, fern green and ringed by long lashes. He groans, his head falling back as his eyes close.

Amber takes him into her mouth exactly the way he likes, and as he focuses on the sensation he thinks of plumper lips that smile instead of pout. At that he gives in.

His mind is suddenly back in that warehouse, and he is leaning against dusty steel shelving. Lina is the one kneeling in front of him, and he sucks in a tight breath through his teeth as her mouth moves down his shaft.

Long dexterous fingers tug his pants open wider and then move up to slip beneath his new black shirt. Blunt nails slide over his abdomen and he growls as her tongue skates over the vein on the bottom of his cock.

_Fuck. _

His mind goes fuzzy as he imagines that sweet mouth working insatiably at him. He gets lost in images that flash through his mind like bursts of lightening.

It’s the real one that does it. He remembers her looking up at him an inch away, her pupils gone wide and her breath short. Those fingers petting at his skin like she’d forgotten what it felt like.

His hips buck and his cock throbs, the muscles of his abdomen tensing as he comes. He opens his eyes and watches Amber swallow him down, running fingers through her hair as he groans lowly. He ignores the worm of disappointment that it’s her.

Once she’s gone he pours himself another drink and cleans Lucille. He takes his time with it, makes sure every knot of barbed wire is bright and the wood is gleaming. While he does his work, thoughts of Lucille bend and sway until he can see her in Lina’s hands again.

Heat rushes over his skin and an interested tingle shoots through his groin. He growls in pure frustration and throws back everything left in his glass. He’s thought about her too much this past week. Those big eyes or soft voice keep slipping into his thoughts.

He should be thinking of strategies to get at that pencil-dick Sean. But he can stretch that out a bit now that the idiot’s on the run, give the hungriest of his people something to chase down and chew on. Plus it’ll be good for some of the newer ones to see how it’s done. Carl too.

The kid’s been cutting his teeth, soon he’ll need to learn how to bite.

“_Negan._”

His radio is sitting on the coffee table next to his knife. He picks it up. “Go.”

“_I think I saw her._”

He blinks and smiles as he pours himself another glass. “Tell me everything.”

-

Gardening is tiring work, especially in the heat. Her broccoli is finally starting to look promising. She glares at the plant as she digs a small weed up a few feet away. Stubborn little bastard. Green beans on the other hand, are her favorite. She’s got the magic kind – they’re a deep royal purple on the plant, and she enjoys watching them turn green as they cook.

She knows it’s just a matter of chemicals in the plant, but it’s fun. Something to take a little joy in. She does that where she can, when she can.

It’s been four days since she went on her scavenging run, and she’s stored her supplies throughout her house and in the shed. It’ll be enough to last a month or two.

But fresh food is always a concern, and so once afternoon hits she gears up and leaves the house. Closing and locking everything behind her, she takes off through the trees on her bike. A few miles away there is a river, fast running and deep. When she arrives, she stashes her bike in a stand of trees surrounded by some bushes and makes her way to the bank.

There are a couple of walkers wandering the opposite side of the water – there is a small town another ten miles in that direction, and the dead leak out of it all the time. She ignores them, knowing that if they try to cross they’ll get caught in the current and dragged away. Idly, she wonders how many of them float around in the oceans. Or would they float? Maybe they just sink to the bottom and get crushed by the density of the water. She hopes so.

At the bank, she picks up the ropes she has tied to a tree and starts pulling in the basket traps she has weighted to the bottom of the river.

She’s stringing the five fish she’d found in them together when she hears the twig snap. Standing, she knocks an arrow and draws it fully as she turns, eyes searching for a threat. She finds it instantly.

They stare at each other for a tense moment, both of them looking down an arrow at the other. Finally, it’s the man that moves.

“Hey,” the crossbow lowers slowly, and then he holds it out to his side in one hand. The other raises, empty. “Easy, don’t mean no harm.”

Her body breaks into a cold sweat as she eyes first his hand with the crossbow, then the empty one.

“Move on,” she tells him, taking a step forward and keeping her bow fully drawn. “Or this goes in your skull.”

His lips purse as he watches her with baby blue eyes. He’s only an inch or two taller than she is, and he has dark hair. It’s long but tied back away from his face. He’s dirty, like he’s been trudging through the woods for days. But his boots and that leather vest are in good condition, so she knows he’s not a wanderer.

“Look, I said I don’t mean no harm.” His eyes sway to the fish dropped at her feet. “Nice haul.”

She tightens her grip on the bow to keep her hands from shaking and glares at him through her fear. The arrow flies and cuts a red trail over his cheekbone, clips his ear, and then buries itself in the tree behind him. He doesn’t flinch, just raises his hands a little and shifts on his feet.

“That was your last warning,” she tells him as she knocks another arrow and draws. “Get going.”

“Look, I didn’t mean’ta startle you. Just saw you fishin’ and thought we could trade.” Her eyes follow his empty hand as it drops and points to the line hanging from his belt loop. “A fish for a rabbit.”

She glares at him again before her eyes drop back to one of the fat rabbits that dangle on the rope. He’s got three. They are larger and fatter than her fish, and not something she can usually catch. She clenches her jaw in thought.

“Drop the crossbow.”

He seems unsure at that, but when she doesn’t move a muscle or speak again he does it. Slowly and gently he sets it against a tree and then takes a step away, hands up. She’s sure he has other weapons, probably a gun too. But so does she and he’s been cooperating.

So for the second time in a few weeks, she breaks her rules.

_This is becoming a problem. _

Slowly she lowers her bow back to her side, watching him for any wrong move. When all he does is let his hands drop and watch her, she sighs. “Okay, fine. Stay right there, we’ll toss them across to each other.”

He nods, and she bends to pick up her fish from where she’d dropped them. She’s working on unstringing one – frowning as she also keeps one eye on the stranger – when she hears the splash in the water. Turning, she watches one of the dead stumble as it walks into the water on the other side of the river. It makes it a few feet before the current starts to drag, and then finally it falls and gets carried away.

Shaking her head, she shares a look with the stranger and he shakes his head. “Good thing they’re dumb.”

She resists smiling at him and unstrings her fish. “Here.”

She tosses it at his feet and waits expectantly. He has the rabbit in his hand. Then suddenly he lunges towards his crossbow, and her breath leaves her as bony fingers clasp her forearm and the rattling growl of a dead one sounds far too close to her ear.

She throws her body to the side and rolls, but the walker’s hands are clenched on the sleeve of her jacket and it falls with her, neck stretching and teeth gnashing as it reaches for her skin. Her other hand moves to its shoulder, pushing it away with everything she has. Its face hovers above hers, eyes sunken and milky as a jawbone bare of any skin and glistening with its own congealed blood snaps over and over.

She hears a twang, and then an arrow buries itself into the side of its skull. The neon green fletching is bright and bizarrely friendly compared to the desiccated ear it sticks out above. With a grunt of effort she pushes the body aside and sits up, staring at it as she catches her breath.

“You bit?”

Breathing through her parted lips, she shakes her head at the man and gathers her feet under herself to stand. “No.” She eyes his crossbow as she rubs at her neck. “Thank you.”

He shrugs. “Was nuthin’. Us against them, right?”

She nods and bends to pick up her bow. The arrow is snapped from where her body had landed on it, and she scowls at the loss and tosses it away.

“Usually, yeah.”

His face turns speculative as he walks over and yanks his arrow out of the dead walker.

“Ugly fucker,” he mumbles quietly, and then they are both glancing around through the trees for more.

When no other walkers stumble towards them after a few minutes, the tension in her shoulders relaxes and she loops the strap on her bow over one shoulder. He has done the same with his crossbow, and has picked up the fish she’d tossed him.

“Name’s Daryl,” he tells her as he holds out a rabbit.

She debates having him toss it to her before stepping forward and taking it from his hand. “Lina.”

He nods and they both secure their traded food.

“I got a camp back a little ways. You hungry?” He asks it so casually, like inviting people to eat is still normal. She frowns and shakes her head.

“No, trade’s done. Now we go on our own ways.”

He purses his lips and nods, going over to where her arrow is still buried in the tree and pulling it loose. He hands it to her wordlessly, and she returns it to her quiver.

“Nice to meetcha.”

She gives him a small smile and nods. “You too. Bye.”

She edges away from him, going backwards. He watches her for a second before nodding and turning away. She watches him until he goes through some underbrush and is gone. After that, she speeds to her bike, hops on and is pedaling away quickly.

He’d been nice enough. Gruff, but polite. But the end of the world meant that nice could turn to murderous from one minute to the next, depending on the circumstance. And she’d already taken her chance for the day.

So she cuts through the woods to the nearest main road, going far out of the way, and takes the cement paving back home to avoid leaving tracks. As she does she thinks about the risks she’s been taking. It’s foolish to do so, and if she doesn’t go back to being careful she’s going to end up dead – walking or not.

No more taking chances on strangers, she resolves. No more taking chances at all, if she can help it.

By the time she gets back home it’s late in the day, the sunlight fading as the sky turns amber and the clouds become lined with gold. She stows her bike behind the house and sets about cleaning the fish and the rabbit. Either her own movement or the smell of fresh blood draws two walkers out of the trees. She takes them out with arrows and does her perimeter check on the fence as it grows dark. Then she drags the bodies away into the forest.

The rabbit and some asparagus makes a good meal, and by the time she’s done eating it’s very late and she feels stressed and tired. A bath helps, and when she lays down her mind is clouded and her eyes feel heavy. Despite herself, dark eyes and dimples greet her as she falls asleep.

When she wakes up, she knows right away it’s much later in the day than normal. Her sleep had been uneasy, tossing and turning as she relived some of her worst experiences but with varying endings that had never actually happened. Like her mind was trying to make peace with its scars.

Checking her watch on the bedside table, she frowns to see its past two in the afternoon.

_Great, half the day gone._

Yawning, she slips her watch on and gets down from the loft. She fills a pot with water and sets it to boil on the stove, then she goes around and raises her curtains an inch or two each, peeking out of each window to check the surroundings. No walkers, she was glad to see.

When she gets to the one by the front door, she peeks around the curtain and feels her stomach twist and writhe as her breath goes short, her shoulders tensing. She pulls her M9 from its holster where she had set it on the coffee table and stands in front of the door, debating. Could she slip out the back?

She’d have to dress, grab the bag she kept always packed and her weapons. She had never had to jump over the fence but she was sure she could if she had to – could she do it without being noticed though?

Munching the inside of her cheek crudely, she turned away from the door to do exactly that, and then turned back with a huff. Shaking her head and already breaking the promise she’d made to herself yesterday, she flings open the door and raises her Beretta.

“What are you doing here?”

From where he leans against the driver’s side of a black jeep, Negan looks up and smiles widely at her. That bat flips end over end in his hands one more time before he stands straight and walks casually to the gate. The bat swings in one hand and then comes up to knock lightly on one of the bars.

“Knock knock,” he grins, and she wonders if he realizes that her heart is pounding in her throat. If he does, he doesn’t seem to care anymore than he does that her gun is trained on the space between his eyes.

She glares and takes a step away from the door. “Go away.”

His smile only widens, and she is distinctly aware of his eyes flashing to her gun and then back to her face with amusement. The bat – _Lucille_, she reminds herself – lowers down to his side and his torso leans slightly to follow it. All it does is make her aware of his broad shoulders, hidden under black leather.

“Someday I’m going to start getting offended at you aiming that gun at me every time we meet.” His lips quirk higher. “You gonna invite me in?”

Her eyebrows lower as she glowers at him past her gun. “No, how did you even-” She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath, “go away.”

The corners of his mouth twist and his tongue comes out to lick his bottom lip slowly. She purposefully looks away from him and lets her eyes run over the trees around the road. She doesn’t see anyone else, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

“Don’t be so worried, darlin’.” He grins again, his head tilting slightly back even though she’s sure his eyes never leave her. “Just me today. Can’t have someone interrupting us like last time, now can I?”

Her stomach flutters and something tingles over her skin. She’d forgotten how suggestive he could be. With a final huff, she lowers her gun, putting the safety on as she strides to the gate. She regrets it, since she’s barefoot and the gravel is hot. But she’s had worse, so she bears it as she puts the combination into the padlock on the chain that keeps the gate closed.

She is aware of Negan watching her the whole time, and she scowls at everything else as she refuses to meet his eyes. Once the chain is off, she opens the gate just wide enough for him to come through, and then closes and locks it up again.

What an odd thing, for the chicken to let the fox into the henhouse. She shakes her head at herself and turns. He is leaning against the fence, Lucille settled on his shoulder. Obvious interest flashes in his eyes as he looks her up and down, and she is suddenly very aware that she is still in a tank top and sleep shorts, with her hair undone.

Ugh, today of all days.

She appraises him in turn, taking in the leather jacket that is unzipped to reveal the grey t-shirt underneath it. She stops herself from ogling the way it stretches over his chest and drapes down his torso in a way that is just unfair. He wears dark grey chinos and the same black boots. The only thing different about today is the dark red scarf around his neck. She kind of hates that even that looks good, framing his stubbled jaw attractively.

She crosses her arms and nods her head towards the house, preceding him back up the short drive to the door.

Negan standing in her small cottage is one of the oddest sights she’s ever seen, and these days that says something. He stops by her sofa, turning and looking around the room with a pleased grin before he lets out a low whistle.

“Well holy hell,” he turns back to her and leans against the arm of the couch, Lucille held by his right leg as he smirks. “No wonder you didn’t take my offer, darlin’. Look at this little paradise you’ve got here!”

She takes a deep breath and holsters her gun, then opens her mouth to speak when she hears telltale sizzling from the kitchen. Cursing, she bolts past him and goes straight to the stove where her pot of water has started to boil over. With a little growl she grabs it and moves it off the heat, then goes about cleaning up the bubbling water on the stove.

A chuckle sounds over her shoulder, and she turns slightly to see that Negan is standing behind her, leaned up against the empty doorframe from the living room. “Hot damn, you almost make me think we’ve turned the clock back a few years.”

Heat rises to her cheeks and she doesn’t respond, shaking her head a little as she tosses the damp hand towel into the sink. She can practically _feel_ his eyes on her bare shoulders as she gets out a bowl and the canister of oatmeal she’d intended on eating for a late lunch.

He doesn’t say anything else, and somehow that irritates her even more as she gets some strawberries from the fridge and starts slicing them as the oatmeal absorbs the hot water. It isn’t until she has poured it into the bowl and is sprinkling the strawberries over the top that she can’t stand it anymore.

“How in the hell did you find me?” She whirls and glares at him. His eyes move up from where he’s evidently been eyeing her legs, and she feels the heat pour into her face.

There is a small kitchen table with two chairs that she hardly ever eats at. He doesn’t immediately respond and instead saunters over to it, pulling a chair so that the back is to the wall and sitting down with ease. Lucille gets propped against the wall beside him and his legs stretch out long and lean, crossing one over the other as his fingers mesh and his hands rest on his torso.

Finally, with his head casually leant back against the wall, he smiles and replies, “I’m a man of many talents.”

She bites the inside of her cheek to the point of pain, and then grabs her bowl to sit across from him. His head rolls slightly to the side to watch her progress, but other than that he doesn’t move except for his chest and shoulders rising and falling easily with every breath.

She takes a few bites of oatmeal as she mulls over her situation. In the end, it all came down to the fact that her solitude and safety are now compromised. Negan knows where she stays and it’s possible the people in his command do too. She grimaces at the notion of leaving to find a new place. Winter is only a few months away, starting over will be difficult. She can’t imagine finding a place as remote and secure as this one anytime soon.

With a sigh, she pushes away the half uneaten bowl. Her appetite has been swallowed by anxiety and it’s like chewing on cotton balls soaked in ashes. Instead she pulls her legs up and hugs her knees, watching him watch her.

“Okay, then what do you want?”

His smile had disappeared at some point. At her question, a light flashes behind his eyes and the air in the kitchen seems to condense. She can _feel_ the three feet of space between them. His ungloved hand comes up to rub at the whiskers around his mouth.

“Come back with me.”

She’s shaking her head before he’s even done with what isn’t really a question. “I’ve told you no-”

“_Lina_,” he ‘tsks’ and turns in his seat, leaning over the table on his elbows with both eyebrows raised. “Do I need to stop asking?”

There is a threat behind those words that makes every hair stand on end. She realizes that her gun is on the countertop seven feet away, and he is between it and her.

“Why do you want me to in the first place?” She asks heatedly. “You obviously have plenty of people, and I’m just-”

“Oh, you mean aside from this treasure box of goodies you’ve got stacked up behind that pretty little fence? Maybe it’s escaped your attention,” he cuts in, eyes narrowing as he stands and leans on the table, towering over her. “But doctors aren’t exactly a fuckin’ dime-a-dozen anymore. And we both know damn well that you know what you’re doing when it gets bloody. I like that. I _need_ that.”

He looms over her. It’s obviously an attempt at intimidation, and she hates that it works.

So she stands, turning her back on him and taking her bowl to the counter. There is a part of her that wants to say yes. The doctor that she was trained to be still lives in her, it’s true. She does like the idea of helping the people in his community that might need it. But she’d started doing harm a long time ago, and the need to help people is buried underneath the drive to stay alive one more day.

Which brings her back to the real problem – people. A _group_ of people. The time she’s spent surviving since the outbreak has only taught her that being around others puts her in more danger.

“I can’t.” She tells him softly, refusing to turn around as she props herself against the counter and hangs her head low.

His disapproval carries through the air in the silence.

“Tell me why.” He demands.

She exhales and finally turns to him, chewing her lip. “I need to check my fence. Wanna come?”

He just watches her, so finally she brushes past him and goes to the front door where her bow and quiver lean. Strapping her quiver to her bare thigh is odd, but she brushes it off and opens the door after slipping into her boots. After a moment he follows her out, Lucille in hand.

They walk half the perimeter without speaking, him watching her check the joints of the fence like she always does. When they reach the back side of the property he spends a long moment looking at her garden with pursed lips before following her.

It’s oddly nice, walking the same route she always does but with company. Something about his tall presence beside her with a Louisville slugger draped over his shoulder is very comforting. She likes and hates it.

“I’ve lived with other people before,” she finally tells him in a low voice as they start to circle back. “It…always ends bad. Dead ones come, or someone else does. When I think about it, I’m amazed I’m not dead too.”

He gives her a narrow sideways look, and Lucille starts swinging in loops in his gloved hand. “How many?”

“Two.”

A laugh leaks out of him as he smirks at her. “No, darlin’. Tell me how many people were in these two groups of yours?”

She frowns a little and stops to stare into the trees. Had she seen movement or was it that bush in the breeze? “Oh, uhm…a little over forty in the first one. And the second one…seventeen.”

He chuckles, leaning forward a little with Lucille propped in the grass. “_Haa_, oh shit. Lemme guess, whatever asshat was in charge had no clue what they were fucking doin’, did they? Probably had you holed up in a house somewhere, kinda like this? Or maybe you stayed on the move, camped around a lot?”

She grimaces and turns away from the trees, deciding it was the bush. “So?”

“So they were idiot pricks that had no business leading a goddamn choir group, let alone people in the fucking apocalypse.”

“And you know better?”

His smile settles down into straight lips as he watches her, his eyes going a little narrow. “You better believe it.”

She tightens her jaw and keeps walking, well aware of him following a step behind. She can feel the weight of his attention in the way the skin of her neck tingles.

When they reach the front gate again, she leads him back inside. He takes up residence on her sofa, filling one half of the loveseat a little too well as he leans back and props one foot up on the coffee table, Lucille leaning handle-up against one thigh.

She leaves him there and goes into the bathroom, pulling her hair up into a loose bun to get it out of the way. Then she goes to the kitchen and rummages around in one of the low cabinets before coming out with her prize.

“Well, hot damn.” He smirks as she settles onto the couch sideways to face him, crossing her legs beneath her. He eyes the nearly full bottle of whiskey with clear approval as she pours them each a glass. “You are full of surprises.”

She shrugs. “I hate this stuff. But it gets the job done.”

She sips it, resisting a grimace, and eyes the way he tips his glass and swallows easily. “Where’d you find it?”

“It was in a house I went through a while back. Why?”

“It’s good shit. Worth a pretty penny back in the day.” He takes another drink, and his hand comes to rest on the armrest of the sofa, the glass spinning slowly in his fingers as he looks at her. “Tell me something, how many people do you think I have?”

She squints as she takes another sip, and she knows that her lips contort a little from the way his mouth twitches. “I don’t know, seventy or eighty?”

He ‘tsks’ and shakes a finger at her. “Wrong! Try again.”

She shrugs. “What, a hundred?”

His eyes narrow, and she is reminded of the cat that got the canary as his tongue rubs against the corner of his mouth. “Six, darlin’. Six hundred. Well, give or take a few depending on how many pay the piper at the end of a day.” He grins. “There _are_ living dead assholes wandering around, after all.”

All she can do is blink. Six _hundred_ people? Some part of her mind thinks it’s crazy that that number sounds like so many, now. But it _is_ a lot, almost impossible for her to imagine. Six hundred! Where do they all _sleep_?

Warm fingers brush her jaw, pressing it upwards gently, and she realizes she’s been sitting there with her mouth open for over a minute. Blushing, she presses her lips together and blinks. His fingers stay, his thumb rubbing gently over the skin just underneath her bottom lip.

It’s the first time he’s touched her.

Heat rolls in her lower stomach and arousal shoots between her thighs as the skin beneath his touch tingles. All she can do is stare wide-eyed back at him, sure that her cheeks have gone dark and that he can hear how her breathing has shortened.

“Come back with me,” he says, his voice a gravelly baritone. His eyes go dark as he feels her shiver, his pupils blowing wide.

Finally she gulps heavily and leans her head just out of his touch. His lips twitch, but his hand falls away back to his lap.

“What happens if I don’t?”

His head tilts and an eyebrow arches. “Lina,” his jaw cocks to the side as he leans toward her “I think you know by now, it’s not a choice.”

She did know it. A man in charge of that many people, that commanded by himself, was not one that took ‘no’ for an answer. At least he was being nice about it. A barrier inside her breaks and her stomach tightens as she looks down at the glass in her hands.

“Do you have an infirmary? Medical supplies?”

“Don’t you worry about any of that, I’ve got the full setup just waitin’ for you.”

She takes a gulp of whiskey and coughs a little as it burns down her throat. “Before I…go with you…”

“_Yes_?”

She flicks her eyes up to his and sits up a little straighter. “If I’m going, I’m going as your _doctor_. Not…not something else. No other strings.”

She’s well aware that she’s acknowledging the chemistry between them. Admitting to something that maybe she shouldn’t be. But she’s not ashamed to stand up for herself. Maybe she would have been, before. _That_ fear has been ironed out of her.

He smirks in a different way than she’s seen before, and if anything his eyes only grow more penetrating as they flood with want.

“To make things clear, _sweetheart_,” she inhales sharply at the new pet name and the emphasis he puts behind it. “No woman in the Sanctuary does anything unless she chooses to.”

She nods and looks away, around her little living room and up to the loft where her familiar bed waits. “Can I bring my stuff?”

He grins and leans back further into the couch, tossing back the rest of his drink. “Well, technically it’s all mine now.” She scrunches her eyebrows at him, but before she can ask he continues. “But sure, I’ll have my people pack it all up and you can have it. See how easy this is?”

He grins wide and gestures to the bottle she’d set on the coffee table. She narrows her eyes at him, but can’t resist smiling as she grabs it and pours him another glass. He’s criminally charismatic. She wonders what he’s like with everyone else. 

_Guess I’ll find out._

“We should eat something.” She tells him, finishing her glass and feeling the buzz make her head spin.

He hums in acknowledgement. “You got spaghetti?”

She frowns. “I’ve got trout.”

He shrugs. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Something zings up her spine, and to get away from it she stands and goes into the kitchen. Glancing at her watch, it’s nearly five o’clock. Early for dinner, but this whole day has already been off so why not that too?

She’s got butter sizzling in the pan when he joins her, leaning against the counter with his drink and watching her. When she pulls out the fish and some carrots to go with them he chuckles a little.

“Damn, you _are_ special. You always know how to take care of yourself this well?”

She shrugs, chopping away at the carrots. “Sort of. My dad was an ex-marine, he loved the outdoors. My mom was a chef at a restaurant. Between the two of them I learned how to kill things and then how to cook them. I guess in terms of learning to look after myself I got pretty lucky.”

“Huh,” he puts his empty glass down and crosses his arms, and she’s glad she’s done chopping carrots because the way that leather jacket lays over his shoulders and widens to show off his torso is criminal. Shaking her head, she turns to the stove and focuses on cooking. She does her best to pretend not to notice that he never stops watching her.

When the food is ready he sits pointedly back at the table, and as they eat he asks her keen questions about the cottage and how she’s kept things running.

“You’ll want the solar panels, I guess,” she tells him in between bites. “You probably already have some at your settlement though, right?”

He shrugs. “We do.”

She finishes chewing and watches him. “I can show you where I got them, if you want more. There were a lot, still in the packaging. It took me a while to get them working but now I know how. I could do it again.”

“I got a guy,” he tells her. “His brain’s almost too big for his damn head. Just show me where they are.”

She nods and stands up to go to the fridge. “I’ve got some sun tea, if you want any.”

He holds up the tumbler that is half full of whiskey and smirks as an answer. The bottle is on the table, more than half empty. She turns away and rolls her eyes, pouring herself a glass of the tea. He must drink much more often than she does, to have the tolerance he does. Her own buzz was finally wearing off as she sat back down and finished her food.

By the time they are clearing the table – she tries to hide her surprise that he helps – she notices that the sun is setting and sighs. While she’s scrubbing at the plates he pulls a radio from his belt and turns it on.

“Regina.”

_“Here.”_

“Send a crew to my location, make sure they’re loaded.”

_“Will do. Be there in forty five.”_

“I guess I should go pack,” she tries to hide the weight in her throat and the nerves that are suddenly crawling in her belly at the thought of being surrounded by people.

He senses it, of course he does. He puts his empty glass in the sink and leans beside her on the counter, arms crossed. “Bring what you want. I’ll send some trucks and get the rest of this shit packed tomorrow.”

She nods and leaves the dishes stacked next to the sink, going out and down the little hall to the bathroom where she pulls back her hair more securely into a tight bun, and slides a cloth headband over the front to keep it secure. She turns to find that he has followed her, Lucille back in his hand, and is appraising the little bathroom with a curious gaze. She props herself against the sink and resists smiling.

“I’ll miss the bath,” she sighs after a moment, giving it a mournful glance. When she looks back at him, her fingers spasm against the lip of the sink. He is still, watching her with plain craving written across his face.

“Well, I’d say there’s time for one more.”

She can hear her blood pumping in her ears as she focuses on breathing, before she forces out a little laugh and shakes her head.

“I don’t think so.” She whispers and leaves the sink. She walks to the doorway which he is solidly blocking, stopping just in front of him. When he doesn’t move, she looks up at him and prays silently to herself that he can’t hear her heart pounding. “I still have to pack.”

For several heartbeats nothing moves, his eyes are glued to her and she is standing close enough to catch the scent of his skin. Then, with a half grin he steps back, gesturing for her to go with a raised Lucille.

She hightails it down the hall and up to the loft so quickly her head spins. He doesn’t follow, so she shucks her shorts to quickly tug on a pair of clean black jeans and trades her tank top for a red shirt with three quarter sleeves and her grey jean jacket.

She grabs the bag that is already packed in case she needs to run and adds more things to it, and then also fills her normal pack with additional items. By the time she climbs down from the loft he is back on the sofa, seemingly content to sit there and examine Lucille. His gloved fingers are fussing with a bit of the barbed wire.

She drops her bags by the front door and pulls her boots back on, and then gathers her weapons. Her quiver is tucked into a pocket of one of her packs, the bow strapped to the front of it securely. She has her gun strapped to her thigh, and is about to fasten on her wrist sheath when he stops her. 

He holds his hand out and after a delay she hands it over to him, sitting down beside him on the sofa.

He pulls the knife and examines it, turns it end over end. “You were pretty good with this the other day.” He sheathes the blade and hands it back to her. “You ever use it against someone alive?”

She sucks in a breath and fastens it on, using the straps as a distraction from his attention. “Yes.”

He hums interestedly and Lucille shifts on his lap. “You kill em?”

“What does it matter?” She snaps, and looks away as his eyebrows raise and his lips twitch.

“Oh, apparently it matters quite a _bit_,” he leers at her when she shoots him a little glare from beneath her eyelashes. “Doesn’t it?”

She huffs but doesn’t reply as she tugs her jacket sleeve down over the knife.

Negan opens his mouth to say something else, but instead they both turn towards her door as the sound of a vehicle pulling up reaches them. Bright light flashes through the cracked open curtains from headlights, and she realizes that it is growing dark out.

_“Negan, we’re at the gate.”_ His radio announces, and together they stand and go out the front door.

There is a dark SUV waiting next to Negan’s jeep at the gate. As the two of them approach, the doors open and six people pour out. Five men and a woman, Lina notes. They are heavily armed. While the driver comes up to the gate the rest fan out around the gravel road, heads on a swivel as they search the trees.

Once the gate is open Negan gestures to the front door with Lucille and tells the driver “grab her shit.”

The man nods and trots away, coming back in a moment with her bags. He shoots her a curious look as he passes her, but doesn’t say anything as he puts her things in the back of the vehicle. A whistle from Negan brings the others jogging back.

“Lock it up,” he orders, and she watches as the chain is put back on the gate with a new padlock.

_Well, it’s final now._

She bites her cheek and turns away.

“Mac,” Negan barks, and a man steps closer. He has short blond hair, whiskers that show he hasn’t shaved in a few days, and a dark tattoo up the left side of his neck. He carries a rifle easily in his hands as he looks to Negan. “You and Tania take her back to the Sanctuary. The rest of you with me.”

They all nod and break apart, climbing into the vehicles quickly. Lina blinks and lets Negan guide her to the SUV where she slides into the backseat. He keeps the door open and watches her as she gets settled and puts on the seatbelt.

She wants to ask where he’s going, because it seems as though they are parting ways. But she doesn’t, partly because she can’t find her voice in front of these new unknown people. Her nerves are in her throat and her fingers are trembling where they clench the seatbelt, which she is sure he notices.

He leans forward until his face is close to her ear, and her breath catches as he speaks lowly. “Don’t worry darlin’, they’re just taking you home safe and sound. I’ve got shit to do. Man in high demand, remember?”

She turns to look at him as he grins widely at her, and forces a shaky smile as she nods. He watches her for one more moment, and then closes the door. Her eyes track him through the windows as he saunters over to the jeep and slides into the passenger side, and then the door closes and she is left alone with strangers.

_You don’t know Negan any more than them. _

Trying to block out unwanted thoughts, she gnaws her cheek and brushes her fingers over the hilt of her knife more than once as the jeep pulls away, and then the SUV follows after. The man and woman in the front seats are silent as both cars roll through the growing darkness down the gravel. When they come up on the main road, the jeep goes left and she goes right.

The sun fully sets as they continue down the road, turning multiple times. After twenty minutes they are in an area that she hasn’t been in before, flying down a highway that she thinks runs north. But soon enough they exit back onto a side road and she loses any sense of direction in the trees.

She is picking nervously at her fingernails in her lap when there is a massive boom and the SUV lurches. Her body jerks against the seatbelt. She hears the woman curse as the vehicle spins out of control, and suddenly everything rocks and goes blurry. All she can think of or do is grip onto the seatbelt as she hears metal scraping and the splatter of breaking glass.

Finally the world goes still and quiet, and she blinks dazedly before she realizes there is cement five inches in front of her face where the window used to be. All she can do is look at it, confused. Where was the window?

She should get out of the car – for some reason? She scrunches her eyes closed and moves an arm to where the seatbelt is still buckled. Immediately at her movement, her body wakes up and she gasps in shock at the rush of pain.

Her torso aches, her head is throbbing and her left arm is pinned below her.

Blinking, she frowns at the cement window in effort. Her hand fumbles at the buckle ineffectually, her fingers won’t do what she wants.

She groans after a moment and gives up, wincing. Every short breath comes with a stab of pain. Her thoughts are dull and sluggish as she sits there and puzzles over the situation. Her eyes trail to the driver’s seat, and she sees that the man is still here. His body slouches against the blown airbag of the steering wheel. A thin trail of blood worms its way from the ear she can see.

Mustering herself, she drags her hand back down the line of the seatbelt until it reaches the buckle. Her fingers press, and with a click it releases.

Her relief is brief before her body falls forward, her head bumping the cement. She coughs against the pain of her torso twisting, and it’s a moment before she can breathe again. Tensing her jaw, she turns looks sideways-up, where the other side of the car is above her. That window is broken too. Jagged teeth of glass grin at her in the darkness.

Her body protests every movement as she claws her way up the seat until her hands can grip the side of the seat, and when she tries to haul herself up her left wrist spasms and she nearly falls back. Instead she tightens her fingers and tries to breathe through the agony as she shoves herself up through the window.

She tries to use her arm to break away more of the glass, but she’s clumsy and rushing as she consciously mounts a defense against the pain and the dull tiredness in her head. She feels some of it bite into her side as she hangs her torso out the window and tries to pull the rest of her body through.

She’s nearly there when something catches against the window edge and she can’t get her leg through. She fights tears of frustration as she turns and looks to her gun holster where it has caught in the seatbelt. Her arms are shaking with the effort of pulling herself, and her ribs protest as her reaches down and fumbles with the seatbelt.

But her fingers feel fat and clumsy and she can’t even see where the catch is. So she gives up and quickly pulls the straps of her holster loose and turns away as it slips down her leg and falls back into the vehicle.

By the time she pulls herself fully from the window and basically falls from the SUV to the road, her body is shaking and her head is reeling.

She stares dumbly ahead for some time before she realizes she is looking at the blown out front tires of the SUV. They are ragged and one of them is still spinning slowly.

She feels her eyes slip shut of their own accord. She is tired and hurts, and she can’t think of doing anything but laying there with her cheek raw against the pavement. She is almost gone – her mind withdrawing to some distant comforting point, receding into blackness – when she hears the shambled steps and rumbling.

Her eyes open slowly, and she shifts her head with a wince to see a dead one making its way up the road toward her.

She wants to sob or laugh, or both. She doesn’t do either as cold fear climbs her throat. She reaches for the knife on her arm, and her fingers have barely wrapped around the hilt when it sees her. It rattles a snarl and lunges, its steps somehow renewed with vigor as it does it’s best to rush towards her.

She pulls her knife and prepares for it to fall towards her, praying that it tries to bite some part of her that she’ll be able to reach. It’s almost to her when she hears the burst of a suppressed gunshot and a bullet takes it in the forehead.

She sags in relief, and looks over to where several people step out of the trees. They carry guns and appraise the state of the SUV as they approach her.

“Told you I heard it!” She thinks she hears one of them say.

They break up, and she can’t make herself pay attention to what they do. She belatedly realizes one of them approaches her, crouching down with a rifle in his hands as he looks her over.

“Damn,” he says quietly, with a grin that makes her skin crawl for every wrong reason.

“It isn’t him!” A frustrated voice calls.

The man in front of her sighs. “I thought you said he’d be coming back this way?”

“He should be! He came this way today, we saw him.”

“Is this the car?”

“I don’t think so. It was dark like this one but I don’t know.”

“Son of a bitch!” He curses, and looks around. “Alright, pick the fucking spikes up and we’ll go. Quick, more roamers’ll be coming from the sound.”

There is an acknowledgement and footsteps away, and Lina squints as her head throbs with the effort of staying focused.

The man grins at her again. “Poor little lamb, caught in a trap. Sorry! Wasn’t intended for you, baby. What were you and your friends doing out here anyway, so late at night?”

“The other two are dead. Driver’s still in the car and there’s one up the road a few yards. Got thrown out.” More footsteps, and there are feet by her head.

The man crouching whistles lowly and looks back at her. His hand reaches out, and it’s pathetic how easily he takes her knife. Her fingers feel numb and her thoughts move like soup, everything is blurry as the adrenaline slowly leaks out of her body and leaves exhaustion in its wake.

More footsteps. “Got the spikes. Worked real good, we could try this again- Shit! I know her!”

It takes monumental effort, and her head protests with a sharp pang as she turns to look at the newest one to approach. Broad flat nose, thin lips, faint bruising on his jaw. She feels her throat go dry as she vaguely recognizes his face. His greasy hair is all combed to the right side in an odd way, like he’s trying to cover something. After a moment she realizes he is missing an ear.

“What do you mean?”

“She was there! The day I got captured, she was with him. She’s a savior!”

“Huh,” the man crouching gives her a new kind of look and stands, readjusting his rifle. “Well, at least this wasn’t a total waste. Bring her, we’ll see what she knows.”

She makes a whining noise of disagreement, trying to form words and failing as her eyes flutter. Hands grasp her arm and she is dragged up. Her head lolls and she nearly collapses again, her knees refusing to work. More hands on her to hold her steady as her arms are pulled back and something tight goes around her wrists. She can’t bite back the gasp of pain as her left wrist screams at the pressure.

Then she is being pulled, almost dragged away from the SUV and into the trees. Her head hangs, and a different blackness than the night air whirls as she flirts with unconsciousness.

“I hear Negan’s got a group of whores. You one of em, pretty little thing?” Laughter in her ear and a hand running down her torso. “We’ll have to find out!”

Her last thought before her brain gives up is that she should never have come down from the catwalk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, shit’s about to hit the fan hardcore.  
I'd appreciate feedback of any kind!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this was a bitch to write. Not just because of the chapter itself, but colds suck and I've had one for two weeks.  
Your lovely comments and kudos definitely helped me keep going, so thank you all!  
This is a long one and it gets dark. There are rape/non-con elements here, so consider this the last warning before you proceed.

When the jeep goes over a rise and the crash comes into view in the headlights, Negan clenches his jaw and his fingers tighten on Lucille. Beside him, the driver shifts a little and takes silent, measured breaths. Negan is too busy appraising the obviously rolled SUV and the walker bodies that are strewn in the road to notice. 

There’s already a team of Saviors waiting, a patrol from Regina’s outpost. They’d happened on the scene and radioed it in.

When Negan steps out of the jeep, their patrol leader meets him. She’s short, stubby, and older with a mean scar on the left side of her mouth. At one point the rifle in her hands had probably been strange to her. Clearly not anymore. Her dark eyes are hard as anvils as she nods her head to him.

“Sir,” she follows him when he makes no sign of stopping, his pace brisk as he takes in the shattered glass that shines in the jeep’s headlights on the cement. “Couldna happened more than an hour ago. The engine was still warm when we got here.”

He spends a long moment studying the shredded front and back tires. “Did any of them live?”

“The driver. We sent him in a truck back to the Sanctuary. He was unconscious – lucky for him. The biters musta thought he was dead, they left him alone. Too busy with the woman, anyway.”

He feels his spine go rigid as he turns to look at her, Lucille a comforting presence on his shoulder. “What?”

“She must’ve been thrown when the car rolled, broke her neck or something. She was dead in the road. Just bits and pieces now.”

His jaw clenches as he looks back at the vehicle. Dead. He should have kept her with him.

Instead he turns and walks over to the SUV. The hood is facing him, and he walks from one end to the other before he turns back to the Savior. She is waiting patiently, watching him intently.

“What got the tires?”

“Don’t know yet. Nothing in the road coming either direction. Whatever it was, it’s been moved. Regina sent out a couple more patrols to watch the roads when we called it in.”

He sneers and keeps pacing, his eyes flashing ahead to where the patrol’s truck is parked. Two familiar bags sit on the cement by a tire, a bow fastened to one. He isn’t aware of walking to them, but he rests Lucille’s head on the pavement as he crouches down to look. Curious, he reaches out and picks up the holster sitting on top. The Beretta M9 is still strapped into it.

He stands and holds it up to the woman. “This wasn’t on her?”

She frowns slightly and shakes her head. “Nah, in the back of the SUV. The one in the road still had an AK on her.”

He narrows his eyes in thought as he tilts his head at her. “Three bodies?”

She seems confused for a single moment, before she blinks and her eyes are blank again. “Two.”

Slowly he smiles, and suddenly he just knows – she’s alive. _That’s a good girl._

He orders the bags to be put in his jeep and leans against the hood, waiting and whistling to himself. Lucille danced in his hands as he considered the situation.

Within ten minutes the choppy growl of a motorcycle hit his ears, and he grinned as he watched Daryl roll up and cut the engine.

The man himself got off of his bike and strolled directly to Negan, his eyes intent and his mouth set. “Th’hell happened?”

Negan’s grin fell away as he stood, gripping the other man’s shoulder.

“That’s why you’re here.” Fire floods his voice as he thinks of fern green eyes and delicate fingers wrapped around a glass of whiskey. “Somebody is _fucking_ with me, and they have stolen something they mother _fucking_ should not have. Find where they went, I want her back.”

Recognition flashes in Daryl’s eyes and he nods. He’d been the one to find Lina’s little hidey hole, apparently following her first set of bike tracks in reverse through the forest had been like a Sunday stroll for him.

“Atta boy,” Negan claps him on the back and watches as he strides away down the road. The others give Daryl space as he examines the SUV, the downed walkers, the cement, and then seems to be following something as he slips off of the road into the trees. In a blink he has disappeared in the darkness.

Once he’s gone Negan paces slowly and whistles jovially to himself. He’s got the best damn bloodhound there is, Daryl will find anything there is _to_ find.

He’s back within a half hour. Ignoring the looks from the other Saviors, he sets his crossbow on the hood of the jeep and steps close to Negan. When he speaks, it’s the slow quiet way he uses when he’s sure of something.

“Five people,” he explains. “Half mile back they musta parked in th’trees. Must’ve put something in the road. There’s prints, they left draggin’ somebody. Gotta be her.”

“And?”

“They went west, can tell by the way the tires turn just ‘fore they hit the road. From there,” he shrugs and shifts in place in that way he has, “coulda gone anywhere.”

Negan sucks his teeth as he thinks. It’s true, they _could_ be anywhere. But he knows they wouldn’t have gone northeast. The Sanctuary is that way, and the landscape is dotted with several outposts and crawling with patrols. The area least covered by his people is Southwest. There are thick woods that way, and swamps that he doesn’t like sending people into. He beckons to the woman that leads the patrol.

“Take your team and follow Daryl, he gives the orders.” When she nods and gives a wary look at his hunter, Negan can’t help but grin a little. He turns to the man in question. “Take them Southwest, start looking. I’ll send you more.”

Daryl nods. “Aright.”

His voice is stunted with nerves. This is the first time Negan’s put him in charge. They both know what it means.

“You’ll find them,” he says, watching the way Daryl’s shoulders rise and his chest swells as he breathes in deep.

Soon he has slid back into his jeep and is on the way back to the Sanctuary, plans whirling in his mind as he whistles. His gloved forefinger pricks along at Lucille’s barbed wire, enjoying the pressure of the barbs through the leather.

Soon he’ll have his new prize back. Soon, Lucille will get to relieve some of her thirst. How much will depend on what condition Lina is in when he has her.

If Sean is smart – and Negan’s sure, deep in his gut, that the asshole is behind this – he won’t pluck a single honeyed hair from her head.

-

Awareness returns to her like a slap. She gasps. Then as her eyes open wide and her body twitches, it’s the sting on her cheekbone that tells her it _was_ a slap that had woken her.

Once she feels that, everything else bleeds in with it. Her skull throbs and weighs too heavy for her neck. There’s a digging agony that stabs into her left ribs, worse with every breath. She consciously shortens her breathing and tries to convince herself that it helps. Her arms are over her head, she realizes. Bound and tied to metal piping that is exposed on a cement wall. Her wrist is the worst. It doesn’t pulse or throb, it is a constant hurt. She expects to see a knife buried between the bones of her wrist when she looks up. Instead all she sees is bruised and slightly swollen skin, pressed against red rope.

She means to blink, but instead her eyelids close and stay shuttered as she begins to retreat away, back to the blackness.

Fingers crush her jaw and shake her head side to side. Tears rush to the back of her eyes as her head protests strongly, pounding drums against her skull. “Eso sí que no, hermosa. Open them pretty eyes back up.”

She does, but not on purpose. It’s automatic as fear reacquaints itself with every inch of her, settling onto her skin like a wet rag.

_You aren’t alone, you aren’t safe_. Her woozy mind is trying so hard to keep up.

He’s Hispanic, with dark hair almost to his shoulders and hazel eyes that sneer right along with his mouth. He’s sitting next to her where she is laid out on bare cement flooring. The cold of it bites into her skin right through her clothes, and she realizes they’ve taken her jacket.

“There she is.” He smirks at her, and his fingers clench on her jaw until she whimpers before he lets go. It’s only once he leans back and she blinks several times that she realizes they aren’t alone. Then she fully remembers how she ended up there.

Three other men are also in the room – which is all cement and mostly dingy and dark, except for the floodlight in the far corner – and all four of them are keenly trained on her. Clenching her teeth, she does her best to drag herself into a sitting position, grasping the pipe she’s stuck too and pulling herself up.

She used to love watching nature documentaries, before. Suddenly her mind supplies the image of wolves around a rundown elk, as it breathes heavy and writhes where it has trapped itself in mud. She realizes she has stopped breathing and grips hard to the pipe to feel something steady. Her head spins as she allows a shuddery breath down her throat.

One of the men is sitting in a chair, and he shifts and leans closer to her. He’s younger than she is by at least five years, in his late teens or early twenties. His skin is dark umber, and it shines in the floodlight across his strong cheekbones and shaved bald head. His eyes are a bright tawny, and they sparkle with a light that makes her uneasy as he looks down at her with a face as still as glass.

“So,” when he smiles it looks wrong. He’s forcing it, like he doesn’t know how. “Finally, something I can use. Good job, Allen.”

The man who’d spoke to her last night nods, arms crossed.

The seated one possesses a wiry strength, made evident as every move he makes is smooth and quick. His hands hang from his lap easily, and then he’s motionless except for his eyes.

“We know you’re a Savior. What’s your name?” His voice is high pitched, for a man. He seems to talk slower, maybe because of it. Another mimed smile is sent her way, and the hair on the back of her neck prickles. “My name is Sean. I’m sure you’ve been looking for us, from what Ron tells me.”

He nods towards the man missing an ear, but she refuses to look away from him. If these are wolves, he’s the Alpha. She doesn’t speak.

He waits several breaths, but when she doesn’t reply he continues. “You’re the first one we’ve been able to capture. So, going to tell me everything. About the Sanctuary, about the outposts. About patrols, and how many people I can expect to find and where.” His lips twitch before falling flat again. It’s the first real emotion he’s shown, and the cold pit in her stomach writhes in response. “And you will tell me _all_ about Negan.”

She blinks and leans her head back against the wall. There is a pressure welling up behind her eyes, and she is trying to keep her bearings. Finally, she swallows and clears her throat.

“M’not a – a _Savior_.” She tells him, sounding winded. She is aware of the man sitting at her side shifting, his hands moving forward on his lap. “I don’t know what that is. I don’t know about anything you’re asking for.”

“Bullshit!” One-ear – _Ron_ – bursts out, his hands clenched to fists at his sides. She realizes he’s missing his right thumb and ring finger and looks away. “I saw you with him. You’re one of them!”

She shakes her head a little before making herself stop as the room blurs and whirls. “I’m not. I swear to you.”

She thinks about trying to explain – about a chance meeting, about the warehouse, about her house and Negan’s surprise visit – but she can read the situation. They won’t believe her. And if they learn she’d helped Negan – after what had been apparently their failed ambush – she’s not sure what they could do to her.

She has an inkling though, if she remembers some comments from last night correctly. It’s enough to turn her spine to rubber and her heart to clench anxiously.

“I’m sure you feel loyal to him,” Sean continues, the cloned smile still on like a mask. “Maybe even something more, we’ve heard the rumors about him.”

She isn’t sure what to make of that and pushes it away. There’s no time to ponder, her skin is on the line.

Sean tilts his head slightly as he leans back into his chair. It is quiet for several minutes, apart from breathing. She looks at her boots and tries to ignore all the attention fixated on her.

“I’m going to ask you questions. If you answer them, we’ll feed you and maybe you can sleep without your hands tied. If I’m happy with what you tell me, maybe you’ll get some Tylenol.” She doesn’t need him to say what will happen if she doesn’t answer. He makes no mention of what they intend to do with her, and something in her shrinks at the obvious reality. They won’t let her go. They’ll kill her, or worse.

He spends a long time grilling her with precision about everything he wants to know. Question after question.

She stays silent. She has no answers for him about outposts or patrols, about supply stockpiles or the grounds around the Sanctuary. Sean’s face doesn’t change, even the glint of his eyes stays the same through the whole process. The other three men are silent, but their faces become more and more stormy as it continues. She keeps her fingers tight around the pipe and focuses on breathing.

“Alright,” finally something in Sean’s eyes _shifts_ as he leans forward again, bracing himself on his knees. “I’m disappointed, but if you can answer these next few maybe you’ll get to eat today.”

She supposes she is hungry, but it’s nothing compared to the multiplying knots in her throat and the fear that is zinging up and down her spine like a Frisbee. Food only makes her think of vomiting.

“What does Negan look like?”

She thinks of dark coffee eyes and a winning smile. Of dimples and whiskers and that red scarf. Of the vein on the left side of his neck that stood out when he was animated about something. She stays silent.

“When is he by himself?”

He’d come by himself to see her. That seemed so odd, now. Here he was in a guerilla war with these people and she didn’t think he even carried a gun.

“Where in the Sanctuary does he sleep? Is there a guard? Does he make trips to the other bases often? Are they scheduled?”

She knows none of these things and refuses to look up from the floor as he asks for more and more. When he does stop, she hears him exhale heavily through his nose and glances up as he nods to the man beside her.

The fist into her side is swift, brutal, and crippling. All air leaves her in a whoosh and there are tears in her eyes as spots dance over her vision. Her arms spasm as they try to come down to protect her, and she draws her legs up close. She isn’t prepared for the second strike any more from the first, but the agony triples as her wounded ribs and her empty lungs scream.

There is nothing to focus on but the emptiness in her chest, crushing at her. When she finally gets a little air in, the only thing to do is try for another gasp as she stares up at the ceiling.

When air is something her body is used to again she realizes there is a fist in her hair and her scalp is burning. There is line down her left cheek that she knows is from a tear trying to escape the pain. Her head is held back, her neck craning as she is forced by the man next to her to look up as Sean comes to lean close to her face.

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just stares into her wide eyes. Finally he shakes his head and steps away.

He gestures a hand as he turns and leaves the room, and One-ear and another of the men follow on his heels. She is left with the man at her side and Allen.

She is left with them, and she isn’t a fool. She knows what comes next.

A mean chuckle sounds in her ear and she realizes the man holding her hair has leaned in close. His nose brushes her cheekbone and his hand cranks her head back sharply. She hisses at the sting and looks at a thick crack in the ceiling.

“Okay, chingona. It’s just us now.” She feels him smile against her ear and bile swells in her throat.

She bites her tongue and fights the tremble that goes through her body. There’s no getting out of this. She’d been expecting it with dread climbing in her throat since the moment he’d slapped her awake. Her fear is delirious as she feels his teeth bite into her earlobe.

So, she does what she does best. She goes quiet and still, and she hides.

She pulls back everything that makes her _her, _stuffing it all down deep. Takes any memories that are warm or safe and worth keeping and buries them somewhere within herself. Her mind goes blank, focusing on the pain she’s already in to distract herself from the hysteria that is scrabbling at her chest. Like fingernails against glass.

“Jose,” Allen catches her current tormentor’s attention. “Get her up.”

The metal chair screeches as he drags it away to the wall, and then it is oppressively quiet except for her shunted breath,

Jose chuckles again and pulls away from her. His hand leaves her hair. He leans back on his knees and she stares straight ahead to avoid the expression on his face as he looks her over.

She flinches when his hands rush to her face, and then blinks repeatedly as she realizes he is untying her hands. She is hauled up until she stands dazedly on her own two feet. If she had the luxury she’d be amazed that her knees don’t buckle.

Her hands are tied together behind her. Jose tightens the rope roughly, and her arms jerk as he wrings the rope tight against her skin. She hisses and tries to pull her injured arm away. She still isn’t sure whether it’s broken or sprained. She wonders if it even matters, it’s not like she’ll have a chance to let it heal.

Jose slaps her nonchalantly when she jerks away from him, and while she blinks against the smarting of her cheekbone he moves until he is behind her. One hand crushes her jaw and yanks her head to look forward and up, and suddenly Allen’s face is above her.

He smiles down at her, and she hates that it’s a nice smile. A few years ago, he could have appeared in a real estate or car insurance ad as one of those trustworthy looking people that companies though you might listen to. She could see that, him beaming into a camera.

“Hey honey.”

All she could do was blink and try to breathe, and not think about the fingers pressing into her cheeks, or the other ones running down the line of her spine.

“Listen, I’m gonna ask you Sean’s questions again. Only this time...” she realized that he was holding a knife as it appeared in front of her chin. It gleamed sharply an inch from her nose. “This time if you don’t answer, Jose and I get to play.”

His expression turned rancid as he ran his tongue over his teeth, and suddenly his smile seemed bestial as he hummed. “We already know how pretty you bruise. I bet you bleed sweet too. But if you’re a good girl and you decide to answer, then we don’t have to find out. I’ll be disappointed, but that smooth skin’ll stay whole.”

She flicked her eyes away to the wall as panic welled up into her throat. It was either going to come out as a scream or vomit unless she pushed it back down. Her thoughts were muddled, they kept swirling together across her consciousness and then slipping away. Over that level of dizzy confusion lay the pain, like a heavy woolen blanket trying to smother out any other concern.

_Trick him_.

She frowned to herself and her eyes fluttered as she tried to the follow the trail of that idea. She could lie. Answer his questions with bullshit. It could save her from that knife, at least for a little while. Couldn’t it?

Her stomach jittered nervously in warning, but it was the only play she had.

The knife brought her back. The flat of the blade pressed against her cheekbone, brushed against her eyelashes. She flinched and looked back up at Allen.

“So,” he bit his bottom lip as the blade ran smoothly around the orbit of her eye and up to the edge of her eyebrow. It pressed and stung her skin before leaving, and she couldn’t tell whether he’d left a cut. “Let’s start.

-

“Negan,” Daryl’s voice chops over the radio static, and Negan pulls his walkie from his belt.

“Whatcha got?” He asks, his eyes rolling over the treetops and hills from where he leans against the jeep’s hood. The vehicle sits on a bare hilltop and overlooks miles of terrain. His people are down there, on a manhunt.

“Found tracks, same tire marks as from the crash. Leads to what musta been a camp, least twenty people. Couldna moved more’na few hours ago. Gotta be them.”

“Good, find em,” he replies, his eyes focused on the horizon as Lucille fidgets at his side. He sets the radio beside him and is aware of Carl stepping out of the jeep and coming to his side.

The kid had wanted to go out and help with the search, when he’d heard about the crews going out. He was good in the woods, he’d argued after Negan had given him a flat ‘no’. He wanted to help, to do something. So, Negan was going to give him something to do.

Now, Carl watches him, his one eye bright and inquisitive as always. One of the reasons Negan likes him.

“When we find them,” he says, leaning onto the hood and resting his head on crossed arms. His scarred over socket is in sharp relief in the bright afternoon sun. It doesn’t seem to bug the kid anymore, that it shows and that people look. Negan’s proud of him for that. Plus, he just looks like such a badass. “It’s going to be different, isn’t it?”

“How so?”

Carl’s mouth smudges in thought, “you’re going to have kill them all.”

Negan narrows his eyes curiously as he leans further back against the jeep. His head tips and he brushes Lucille against his panted calf. When he speaks, his words come out in a slow rhythm. “Now why would I do that?”

“They’re from Danvers.” Carl responds immediately, and Negan wonders how long the kid’s actually been thinking about this. “At least some of them have seen you punish them before. They still followed Sean. It’s like…It’s like Alexandria. They won’t stop unless you make them.”

He doesn’t reply immediately, instead Lucille raises up in both hands and he lets his attention follow the familiar wood grain and the winds of wire as he thinks.

Like Alexandria, Carl had said. Like _Rick_, he meant. Just thinking of that prick draws Negan into an emotional quagmire.

Rick might have been an asshole, but he’d been an admirable one. Too bad he hadn’t been able to accept how the new world worked. He would have been so useful, given the time to remake him. Negan almost sighs at the waste.

There’s still a part of him that is furious, thinking of the lengths Rick had gone to in order to fight him. He glances briefly back at Carl – the teenager has turned his head on its side, and he is looking out over the landscape ahead of them. The fury melts and freezes into cold rage. Rick had been prepared to watch Carl die, if it meant eventually winning.

Killing him had felt _so_ _good_. He’d left Lucille bloody for longer than normal, after. She’d glistened so prettily. The corners of his mouth twitch as sweet victory floods his veins and purges away his anger, and he wants to crow at his triumph all over again.

“So,” he finally speaks, watching Carl’s attention turn back to him, “tell me then. What do you think I should do?”

This seems to surprise Carl, because he doesn’t say anything and looks down at the hood of the jeep. Negan lets him think, pleasure worming through him that Carl didn’t ask him _why_ he wants his opinion. He was comfortable with their long talks by now.

For several minutes the only noticeable thing is the breeze as it winds its way around them, fluttering the edges of his open jacket. Negan ponders how long it will take Daryl to follow the tracks to wherever Sean had gone. Probably not long, with the other Saviors Negan had out there to help him. Twenty people, Daryl had said. It was probably more. Sean must’ve found some other ragtag assholes out here to join him.

It had been mid-morning when they’d found an old industrial building with obviously new tire tracks around it in the dirt. That had been the only indication that anyone had been there recently, until one of his Saviors had walked out of the building with a grey jean jacket in her hands. Negan had recognized it instantly, and the search had restarted in earnest as he’d called out more crews to comb the hills.

The jacket is folded on the backseat of the jeep, dotted with dried blood and ripped open on one side in a way that makes him frown unhappily. Lucille taps against his leg. The longer this day goes, the thirstier he feels her getting.

“They’re going to be holed up somewhere, probably,” Carl finally speaks, and Negan watches him out of the corner of his eye as he continues. “A camp, or a building or someplace like that that they can defend. They must know we’re looking by now, which means they’ll be ready to fight when Daryl finds them.”

“So how do we approach?” Negan asks, resisting a smile as he watches the kid’s mind turn behind his bright eye.

“We don’t.” Carl finally answers, a small line between his eyebrows as he runs a hand over his short hair, scratching at his scalp absently. It hadn’t been cut in weeks, and it seemed to bother him. “Wait until night and send a team in. Take their hostage away, and after that you can deal with them however you want.”

He can’t help the pleased smile that stretches wide over his face as he turns to clap a hand on Carl’s shoulder. It’s a good start, he’s almost got it. “Go rest in the car a bit, kid. Gonna be a long night.”

It’s past dusk when it happens. Carl is asleep in the passenger’s seat, the back laid nearly flat with the hood of his jacket pulled up over his head. The kid sleeps silently, Negan can’t even hear him breathe. He’s often wondered if it’s on purpose. Carl had spent so long running for his life as a child, had he learned even to sleep without sound?

Negan sits in the driver’s seat, the door propped open and one foot up on the windowsill as he runs his mind through scenarios for what’s coming. Lucille rolls slowly in his hands absentmindedly, one of his thumbs tracing over the small lip on the handle.

He doesn’t know Sean. Has never seen him, spoken to him, nothing. It’s infinitely fun to guess at what he’ll do, like a puzzle where every piece _might_ fit anywhere to make any picture. Or a maze where the turns shift and there’s no set path to the center.

He turns when he hears the engines approaching, and watches as Daryl’s motorcycle comes over the rise followed by a white pickup. Liam and Arat sit in the cab, with five other saviors loaded into the back. They crouch facing outward, and even up here on the bare rise where he’s been waiting alone, their heads swivel for a threat. This day-long search has gotten them all on edge, primed for a fight – something in him purrs at the thought.

They all pile out when the engine cuts, fanning out around the vehicles in a loose circle as Daryl, Arat and Liam come to him. He greets them with a grin. The only reason they would have come is if they’d found their quarry.

“Bout forty miles southwest,” Daryl tells him as he strides over, his crossbow slung over one shoulder. His hair is escaping from its tie messily, hanging into his eyes. He’s pushed himself today. “It’s an old sawmill. ‘Ere’s chain link around the place, few of em are circlin’ it on guard at a time.”

“There are more of them than we thought,” Arat injects, looking peeved as always. Her dark eyes shine in the headlights. “A little over thirty. They all have guns. We left a few groups around them in every direction, if they move again we’ll know.”

“All men,” Liam adds, a speculative light in those baleful blues of his. Negan likes him, he’s good with details. Notices things other people miss. “I didn’t count a woman among them.”

Something twitches in the back of Negan’s mind at that, something he doesn’t like. He sets Lucille against the middle console and pulls his legs into the jeep. “Alright, time to get this show on the road!”

He closes the door, and when his engine starts the Saviors all stack back into the truck. He looks sideways at Carl. He hasn’t moved but his eye is open, staring up at him. Negan’s sure he heard it all.

“Look alive, kid.” He pulls the jeep behind Daryl’s bike and follows him down into the trees. “It’s about to turn into quite the party.”

The seat pops back up and Carl with it, his hood comes down and he reaches for the water bottle he’s got sitting on the console. “So, what are you gonna do?”

Negan shoots him a sideways look and smirks as he watches Daryl’s back in the headlights. “I’ve told you before, Carl. You’re smart. You’ve got the right approach, but it’s missing somethin’. You know what it is?”

Carl turns away, looking out his window as the silence between them stretches. Negan lets it, he knows the kid’s thinking. They’re deep into the trees, nearly halfway there by Negan’s estimation when Carl turns back to him with a light bulb blinking on above his head.

“A distraction.”

-

She’s not sure how long it’s been since the wreck anymore. Hours or days mean nothing against the giant bruise that is her body.

Allen had followed along at first, nodding and encouraging her as she’d let lies drip out to answer his questions. It had been Jose that had become suspicious. He’d ducked out of the room and come back with Ron as she’d been making up a lie about the Sanctuary. One-ear had listened for all of half a minute before calling her bluff.

Allen’s charming smile had disappeared entirely as he’d slipped behind her. “Oh, honey.” He’d whispered down into her ear behind her, his hands like vices on her shoulders. “Not answering me is one thing. Lying is so much worse.”

She’d been so focused on preparing for the stab of a knife that she hadn’t even seen Jose’s punch coming. The world had rocked as her cheekbone exploded into a fresh new pain. She’d barely had time to suck in a breath before another one followed, meaner than the first. It had sent her lurching into blackness.

She’d only been out for a few minutes, as best she could guess. When she’d come back to it she had found herself in Sean’s chair. Ron had been gone, Allen leaned casually against the wall across from her, and Jose…

There hadn’t been another word spoken. Her eyes had opened, and the beating had started.

He’d backhanded her first, right in the same spot the punches had landed. Galaxies had wheeled in her vision as she’d fallen from the chair. Her hands were still tied, and hitting the cement on her injured side had been like the crash all over again. Her mind had gone blank as all her wounded spots reawakened and made themselves known.

It took her a moment to realize the whimpering in her ears was herself. And then all she could do was brace as she watched a booted foot reel back and then swing forward. The kick had seemed to come slowly. She marveled that she could remember the yellow and black of the laces so clearly right before the foot had caught her low in the stomach.

She had tried to fight, but with her hands tied the most she’d been able to do was try and hunch away from the hits and kick at him.

Till the day she dies, she’ll remember Allen’s cold smile and the absolutely feral glee in Jose’s eyes as he set about breaking her body.

It hadn’t ended until his hand had buried into her hair and hauled her up and into the wall with pitiless force, face first. Her teeth had rattled from the impact, her right shoulder and head bouncing with a dull sound against the cement. She’d nearly passed out all over again as her body had hit the floor, like a bag of rocks. The two swift kicks to her ribs and another slap had kept her present, sobbing for air as she tucked her body into the best fetal position she could manage.

“Alright, Jose,” Allen had stopped him when he’d bent down and reached for her. “That’s enough for now. Maybe she’s wizened up. Get her back in the chair.”

As Jose’s hands had clamped onto her arms and dragged her up, it was all she could do to stare down at her feet. Whatever functions her concussed brain had been capable of after the wreck, they were gone now. Fled beyond her reach as her body tried to contain the agony. Like floodgates closing to stave off disaster.

That had been hours ago. At least she thinks. It had all gotten so much worse since then.

Allen had gone back to asking questions. Even if she had had answers, speaking was beyond her. She didn’t hear half of what he said anyways, it was just noise that flowed over her. Her vision was blurry around the edges and there was a whining in her ears that built into a ringing every now and then. She’d stared at the far wall and kept silent.

They hadn’t been happy with that.

At some point they’d been interrupted. Whatever the reason had been, she’d missed it. But it had resulted in her being carried from the room and put into the back of a pickup. She’d passed out again, when it had become clear that she’d be left alone as they drove.

Now here she is, awake and alone in another small room. Her hands are tied to a steel bar in some contraption that takes up most of it, and she lies flat on her back.

With one breath she feels numb, and in the next every nerve rushes with fire. Sometimes the fire stays for a while, eating up her skin and pooling in her bones. But her poor body is drawing battle lines, doing its best to keep her going. So eventually with a pulse the numbness comes back for a bit. It’s a trick of her brain, she knows. Some chemicals flooding through her. She doesn’t care.

She’s resting, floating along the line of awareness and flirting with the fuzzy blackness when she hears the door open. It’s to her right, so she turns her head and watches as Sean steps through. Allen and Jose follow him in, and her muscles go rigid at their presence.

Sean seems unbothered by her appearance. She’s sure he’s seen worse. Probably done worse. He stops above her and simply watches her for a while.

She stares back, wondering what it is he wants now. She’s got nothing left to give. Her body thumps in agonizing agreement.

“Your Savior friends are looking for you.” He doesn’t give her that imitated smile now, no feign at friendliness. “It would seem that Negan wants you back.”

His eyes flare with a ghoulish gleam that makes her stomach fill with lead. She doesn’t let herself feel the hope that flutters frailly in her chest as he shakes his head.

“But he can’t have you. We took you, you’re ours now.” His real grin is severe, rictus and wrong. Twisted like his happiness. “Soon, everything else that’s his will be mine too.”

She knows it’s not true. Even if he thinks it is, Negan’s six hundred people will prove him wrong. She just selfishly wishes they’d done it sooner. But she certainly doesn’t enlighten Sean to that fact. It won’t do her any good, but it could do him some.

“Now that we know where you belong,” his foot nudges her shoulder, as if to say ‘beneath me’. “Is there anything you want to tell me? The truth, this time? I could have Allen here get you some water.”

Even the _idea_ of water makes her throat seize with want. She hasn’t had anything since dinner with Negan, back at her little cottage. Their quiet evening in her kitchen feels like months ago, now. She blinks back tears and tries to stop her whole body from trembling.

Sean laughs, one brief sound that dies as it leaves his lips while he looks her up and down.

Its insanity, she realizes. That’s what lives in that off-putting glint in his eyes. The type of madness that this awful world inspires in people. She’d seen it before, she should have recognized it right away. It thrives in him, makes him brutal enough to lead the older men around him. She wonders how long it’ll be before he infects them with it.

Maybe he already has, she thinks as she glances quickly at Allen. Or maybe the sickness had come from them. Who knows? She doubts she ever will.

She doesn’t answer him, and he shakes his head down at her before he turns away without another word. Jose follows him, and the door creaks as it closes. She is left alone with Allen. The panic embraces her like an old friend as her heart rises up in her throat.

Allen is smiling widely as he comes to crouch down beside her. “You heard him honey. You’re all ours. Won’t lie, I was hoping for this. Not sure I’ve seen one that looks like you since before the biters. It’s gonna be fun to see the rest of you.”

His knife is back out. He flips it in his fingers a few times while he stares at her. All she can do is track it with her eyes, feeling the cuts it had already left on her skin sting in sympathy.

The ones on her neck and collarbone are the worst, she thinks. A few inches long a piece, he’d dug deeper on those than the others.

It had begun after a few more questions she hadn’t responded to. The first one – just above the hem of her shirt on her right hip – is thin and barely through the skin, just enough for blood to dot and drip. Her shirt had dried over with the scab, she can feel it with the pull and tug of her movements. He’d been almost captivated with it before he’d moved on. Every unanswered question had earned her more. She can barely feel the ones on the outside of her left thigh. She isn’t even sure how many there are, she hasn’t worked up the courage to look.

Her jeans were long gone, in a pile in the corner with her boots. She’d struggled again when they had pulled them off of her, fearing the worst. She’d actually felt relief when Allen had caressed up her shin and over her knee with the knife, and the cutting pierce of the blade had started again.

The knife may be back, but with the cloying taste of panic in the back of her mouth she knows his intentions are far different this time around.

“Tell you what, Jose is _not_ happy.” He tells her as he moves to her hips. She flinches and tries to kick him when a hot hand grips her bare thigh and moves her so that he can settle on his knees before her. “He likes to go first at this type of thing, says I’ll ruin you.”

He laughs softly and her eyes are glued as the knife goes into the sheath at his hip. “But Sean needs him, so you get me all to yourself!”

She turns her head away from him when she feels his hands grip her hips. It was bound to happen, she knows. Men like this don’t hold a woman captive and _not _do this. She’d been expecting it ever since the crash. It had been a dread-filled knot deep in her stomach, cold and heavy to ground her.

She glares at the wall when she feels his hands move her shirt up, hisses when the cloth pulls at her scab and she feels his fingers trace over that first cut, slippery with new blood. She tries to ignore the hitch in his breathing as fear worms its way down her spine and settles in her stomach. Spreading like spilled milk. Her mouth is dry and her throat is tight with the tears she’d holding back. He leans over her, and nausea sweeps through her when his hot breath hits her skin as he mouths at her neck.

She hunches her body and tries to shove him back, tries to raise her shoulder to force his head away. Tries to move her legs under him so that he can’t settle into the valley of her thighs. Her hands scrabble at the rope and the steel, ignorant to the searing protest of her wrist in her alarm. It doesn’t do much except make him sigh in annoyance before he shushes her, one of his hands moving to clamp on her leg as he pushes in closer.

The weight of his body – worse than any walker – and her own pain and exhaustion do his work for him, and soon she is panting as she simply thrashes against him weakly, crying out with the effort.

“Shush shush shush, honey.”

His mouth moves to the cuts, and her stomach rolls as she feels his teeth press at the soft scab of one. Her eyes go wide and flood with anger and hurt as he plucks at her wounded skin, tears tracking over her bruised cheeks. When the blood rises and is met with his tongue, she screams and bucks under him. Rolls her hips and her shoulders in a desperate attempt for it all to _stop_.

His patience departs and he leans back enough to slap her. Her skull rebounds against the floor and she goes dazedly still, blinking at the wall.

She tries not to feel it as he goes back to mouthing at her, tries to ignore the sounds he makes as he imbibes her blood. Tells herself she doesn’t notice the sticky slide of his mouth as his saliva and her blood mix with every twitch of his lips and brush of his tongue. When he bites down on one of the cuts, she cries out and squirms underneath him. Blood rushes to meet his teeth, and his satisfied groan fills her ears. Clogs them up and buries into her.

It’s only when she feels his hand move to her underwear and _tug_ that it happens.

Her fear _cracks_. Splinters messily like a thin wooden board that bears too much weight. Hours of panic and dread fissure and fracture like an eggshell and fall away, and burning anger surges up to roar in her ears.

The bones of her neck snap as she whips her head back to him. There is no thought as she lunges and her teeth close over his face. She feels the give of skin and then a new kind of resistance, something taught and plump. Like a grape. She flexes her jaw and closes her teeth, and his eye _pops_ before blood and fibrous tissue flood her mouth.

He is screaming as he rears back from her, and there is a rip and tear as he leaves some of himself in her jaws. The slime of his sclera brushes her tongue as she spits his skin and blood back at him. One of his hands claps over what had been his eye, and the blood wells past his fingers and spatters down onto her. It’s heavy like oil paint. 

“You bitch!” His other hand pulls the knife and towers back, ready to stab down into her. It is beginning to fall when she surges up, her eyes focused on his bobbing Adams apple and the veins that are in high relief as he yells.

There is blunt pressure on her teeth, and her bruised jaw protests at this new exercise as she clamps. His scream raises to new heights and hot blood rushes past her lips, flooding over her face and into her nostrils as she releases and then bites again.

His screams die, replaced by gurgling and sputtering as she spits rubbery flesh from between her teeth and hauls in breath. The air tastes like pennies. His body is collapsed on top of hers, twitching and jerking in death throes as she stares unblinking at the hole she has opened in his throat. Jagged skin and muscle, torn raw and spurting with blood. So much blood, it is hot on her skin. Thick as it soaks into her shirt and pastes to her torso. She can feel it dripping over her face and into her hair, runny like egg yolk.

Her mind _fuzzes_ as she watches the blood pulse out, in a failing rhythm right along with his heart. She’s not sure when he dies, but eventually she has the coherent thought that he has gone still above her. The blood has stopped pumping out, and it is cooling on her skin.

Her relief is short lived when she thinks of him coming back as a walker, and she with her hands still bound.

_He can still kill you_.

All she wants to do is sob, lay there and mourn where she is and _what _she is. Tears leak from the corners of her eyes as she looks down to where Allen’s hand is fallen on the floor, still clutching the knife. It is a few inches from her shoulder.

She stares at it. She _needs_ it. Knows she does. The only thing she needs more in that moment is the air in her lungs. How to get it? How much time does she have?

She’s seen some people turn in minutes, and others take hours. There is no telling when she’ll start to hear the gurgling growl from above, when his teeth will start to snap. There is the other scenario too, of course. Jose, or Sean, or someone else coming into the room while she’s still defenseless.

No, she _needs_ the knife.

Shifting her body with Allen still on top of her is beyond difficult. Her already short breath is reduced to nothing but thin little pants as she turns her body, tilts all in one direction from shoulders to hips. The strain of lifting his weight is withering, and she gives one final jerk with the strength she has left.

Allen rolls off of her and falls to the floor at her side on his back. One of his legs stays tangled with her own, and with a sneer she kicks it away. His arm has moved too, but with a little stab of victory she sees that the knife hasn’t followed. It sits alone on the cement next to her.

She takes a minute to breathe, sucking in gulps of air and ignoring the shards of glass that grind in her ribcage with each one. She’s so _tired_. There’s no more adrenaline to push her, the panic has faded and her muscles are rubber.

With a lurch, she bows her body until she can push the knife along the floor with her torso. It’s slow and agonizing as every vertebrae in her spine and bruised muscle in her torso protests. She doesn’t stop until the knife is several inches higher, and when she straightens her body out it is level with her chin.

Wincing at the pull on her wrist and the strain in her shoulders, she reaches forward with her mouth. She hisses a breath when her teeth clip the metal of the blade, and with excruciating care she pillows her bottom lip under it and drags.

It cuts her, she feels the sting of it in her lip as her teeth clamp on the metal and she tilts her head back. The handle is like an obelisk towering over her face as her eyes stay trained on it, she can see every grain and deviation in the wood. Her neck arches and her arms bend as she propels her body up to bring it to her waiting hands, her feet flat on the floor and knees in the air.

The rush of triumph that runs through her when it brushes the fingers of her right hand leaves her dizzy. She grips it firmly and drops down, shaking as she looks up at it. She smiles as she turns the knife in her hand and sets the blade against the rope binding her.

She can do this. She _can_.

Her focus comes down to the point of the blade meeting the rope, and she has no knowledge of time or sound as she slowly hews through the red fibers. She doesn’t think she’s ever loved the sight of anything more than the sharp metal separating the spiraled weave.

Then suddenly it’s done, and the rope gives as her hands fall fully to the floor. She feels almost hysterical as she huffs a short laugh, and then she forces herself to sit up. No time is wasted, and she buries the blade into Allen’s skull with a quick lunge. Wiping it clean on his shirt, she looks around and thinks.

How does she sneak out of here? She doesn’t even know where here _is_.

Searching Allen’s body leaves her with nothing. All he’d had on him was the knife and a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. She steals the sheath from his belt and drags herself across the room to her discarded clothes. Tugging her jeans on leaves her far more winded than it should. She wonders if she’ll be able to even make it out of this building without collapsing. Once her boots are back on, she drags herself up the wall to stand woozily and attaches the knife to a belt loop.

She leans there while she deliberates, she doesn’t trust her knees.

No one had come at the sound of Allen’s screams. Either they were too far away to have heard or the walls were very thick. If she opened the door would there be a dozen people a few rooms over or would she actually have the chance to get out? How far away was she from a door that led outside?

She wishes Allen had brought a gun in with him.

She has just pushed herself from the wall, intent on opening the door and taking her chances when she hears it.

A siren. It’s far away, she’s sure it’s from outside the building but it’s blaring so loud it reaches her easily, echoing over the walls. Her eyebrows draw down low and she licks her lips as she stares at the door, ignoring the iron taste of Allen’s blood. Why would there be a siren? From where?

She jumps out of her skin as there is a pounding on the door, scrabbles to pull out the knife as the handle turns and the joints whine.

“Allen, enough of your fucking around we got-”

The man stops one step into the door and stares. His eyes flick between her and Allen’s body, then back. She stays perfectly still, perched on the balls of her feet as she watches him. He’s a big man, six feet if he’s an inch, with a wide chest and heavy arms and legs. He seems too shocked to decide what to do though, just staring at her with a gaping mouth. From outside, gunshots are clapping. She takes her chance.

“Please,” her voice is alien to her, scratchy and strained. “Just let me go.”

It’s a mistake. Her voice hits him and his face hardens, light eyes glinting as he pulls up his rifle from where it hung over his shoulder on a strap. “Dumb little bitch!”

Her body lurches forward as she throws herself into him, crossing the several feet in a heartbeat and tearing the knife down through the air with a cry of effort. She feels it meet resistance, knows she’s landed a hit from the grunt he lets out. Then there is the clap of the rifle as he pulls the trigger, the gun between them.

Her shoulder is sore from being restrained for so long, and it almost fails her as she jerks back the knife and stabs again, then again. Her other arm is pushing at him, trying for the gun. It’s her lame wrist, and when his hand crushes at it she screams hoarsely and brings a knee up into him. He grunts a little as she connects with his thigh, and his hand leaves her own to fly up to her throat.

His fingers are like bands of iron on her skin, clamping down on the tendons in her throat and closing her windpipe.

She kicks her knee up again, and this time meets her target between his legs. He grunts and his body bows, but the hand stays around her neck. Her air is gone, and the automatic panic of her body sets in as she watches his other hand let go of the rifle. Thick fingers reach up to where her knife is stabbed into his chest, below his collarbone. She can’t let him have it. Her fingers spasm as she pulls it from his skin, the muscles of her arm are heavier than concrete as she stabs again.

His body jerks as the blade slides into the side of his neck. Blood spurts onto her hand and she pulls the knife out, wants his life to escape as quickly as it can so she can _breathe_.

After a moment his body crumbles, and she has to pry his hand from her throat to keep from going with him. She has a feeling if she falls now, she won’t be able to get back up. Instead he hits the floor like a ton at her feet, his fingers reaching for her ankle before she steps back into the wall.

It isn’t until she looks away from his neck and bends to pick up the rifle that she feels it. Rippling torture in her right side, above her hip. With a muffled gasp she brings a hand up to the bloodied tear in her shirt, feeling at her broken skin.

The bullet had gone right through her, not even an inch from her side. Just a graze, she thinks as her hand comes away with a new layer of blood. It is tacky and glib in the grooves of her skin. Shaking, she sheathes the knife clumsily and wrestles the rifle from the man’s body. She ejects the spent casing and feeds a new bullet into the chamber.

Heaving for air, she leaves the room and latches the door behind her.

It’s a hallway, the walls are painted over cinderblocks and there are several other doors. At the end of the hall there is a set of double doors. She looks at them and thinks _out_, so she staggers her way to them. Rifle in one hand, the other pressing into the gunshot on her torso as she uses the walls for support.

Pulling one of the doors open takes all the weight of her body, and then she is through and into what looks like the main room of the building. She blinks at the stack of old logs and equipment around her in the darkness and realizes she’s in a sawmill.

A few staggered steps take her to the nearest piece of machinery, and then she is leaning against it as her legs wobble and threaten to give. Her blood is loud in her ears as she drags in air, lightworks twirling in her eyes.

“Lina?”

She wheels at the gruff voice, both hands raising the rifle to aim even as she collapses to her knees. From the floor, she stares down the sight wide eyed at the group that emerges from the shadows on the other side of the room. Five people, led by a man with long hair falling into his eyes and carrying a crossbow.

She knows him.

Her eyes narrow and she stiffens her spine and shoulders against the fatigue that is eating at her. Everything burns and freezes at the same time. What was his name? Why was he here?

He seems to know her unsaid questions, as he holds up an empty hand to her. “Lina, s’okay. Ya member me? It’s Daryl. Ain’t gonna hurt ya, we’re here for you. Negan sent us to getcha.”

She frowns and ignores the way her gun dips as her left arm almost gives out. It’s so heavy.

Negan.

Soft fingertips on her chin.

She squints as light hits her, a flashlight raised by one of the others behind Daryl. Flinches back as it clips into her eyes.

“Holy shit, _look_ at her,” a voice proclaims, and there is a shuffling of feet and turning of heads. Not Daryl though, he slowly edges forward with his eyes trained on her.

“You’re _safe_ now. Promise ya. We’re gonna help. Ain’t no need for the gun nomore. Imo take you ta Negan.”

She can’t hold the gun up anymore, she just can’t. So she drops it loosely to the floor and nods dumbly, staring at his empty hand. A strained breath leaves him and then he is beside her, pulling the gun away and handing it off to one of the others.

“Gary, gimme a hand.”

She blinks slowly as hands and arms wrap around her gently, one of her arms slung over someone’s shoulders. Tries to track the dots dancing on the fringes of her sight as she is mostly carried out of the building.

It’s nighttime outside. The air is cool and quiet, but it’s not dark. From every direction light draws boundaries against the darkness from headlights. She frowns and tries to make sense of the scene.

A group of men kneel in the gravel, looking sweaty and nervous. Around them, another group hold them at gunpoint. Men and women with everything from machine guns to pistols, looking mean and ready to kill as they glare down at their new captives. There are almost a dozen dead bodies scattered around. A man is going around and hacking at their skulls with a machete.

Her eyes bounce along the heads of the men on their knees, unseeing until she meets one she recognizes. It’s Sean, she’s sure. The back of his head is bald and dark, and somehow looks arrogant in its tilt.

He seems almost content as he sits in the dirt, and stares up at-

“Negan,” Daryl calls from beside her, and dark umber eyes flick her way. A triumphant smile dies as he studies her, and shame floods her as she looks down at her feet. She can’t look at him. Can’t.

There is a drawn out silence filled with oppressive tension as she is carried to him until she is just a few paces away. No one speaks, she’s not sure what there is to say.

Finally there is the crunch of gravel beneath booted feet, and she flinches back as gloved fingers barely graze her chin. Her eyes slip closed for a moment, and when she opens them there he is, looking down at her with a blank face and a searching gaze. She can only meet those eyes for a few moments before she glances away, her shoulders trembling.

Whatever it is he sees, he doesn’t like it. After another instant he turns away and there are more crunching steps. She flicks her eyes to him and watches as he stops in front of Sean.

“Now, I told you,” his voice is quiet, a deathly rasp that sends new chills over her skin as she watches that bat raise up in his left hand. It is already blood coated, the barbed wire grins crimson in the glare of the headlights as it stops an inch from Sean’s chin. “That how the rest of this night goes depended entirely on _you_. Didn’t I?

“You didn’t surrender, so a bunch of your people had to die. You made this meeting difficult, so Lucille got one of your pals.” The bat gestures to a body lying a few feet away, and her eyes catch and stick to the red lump of a shattered skull. Trace over the brain matter and bone fragments that are scattered in the gravel. All she feels is tired.

“And I _told_ _you_ that if she came out worse for wear, there would be some gruesome shit in your future. _Didn’t I?_”

Sean doesn’t answer. She glances at his face to see that his eyes are bright, mania swirling as he stares up at Negan. He seems to be daring the man to do something.

She watches as the corners of Negan’s mouth turn downward, and the disdain that envelopes his face is enough for the hair on her arms to stand on end. He and Sean do battle with their eyes as everyone else looks on, until finally it is Sean that blinks and skitters his eyes away.

“Y’know asshole, before yesterday I was gonna offer you quite the deal when we finally met.” Negan smiles, but it is _feral_ as his eyes glitter where they are trained on Sean’s face. “Kill a couple of your guys in exchange for mine…”

Her eyes wander as she listens to his voice. They skate over Sean and recognize One-ear beside him, he is shaking and staring at Negan with pure terror. She blinks and looks away, and her breath catches as her eyes freeze.

It’s Jose.

He is kneeling beside Ron, a mean sneer on his face as he stares at the ground. His knuckles are bruised from hitting her where they rest on his thighs. He seems to feel her attention on him, because his eyes flick up and meet hers. They stare at each other for a drawn out breath, and then the son of a bitch _winks_. 

She’s moving before she even realizes it, springing out of the hands on her. Feet scrabbling in the dirt. No thought to the handle of the knife as her fingers clench tight around it. She screams as she launches herself at him and they fall back into the dirt.

He pushes at her, hard hands pressing to get her off of him. But she is angry and hurting and everything is _wrong_ and he has to know that she can hurt him _back-_

The blade goes through his chest so hard there is a crack as it hits his ribcage. She feels the jolt beneath her, but it isn’t enough. She can still see the boot right before it collided with her body. Can still see his sneer as his fist jerked forward to her face. Can still feel every bruised inch of her skin he’d left behind. So the knife stabs again, and again, clasped in her two hands with all the power she has left.

When she’s done, she leaves Allen’s knife sticking out of his chest. She is straddled over his body, and her breathing is haggard and hoarse. She swallows and stares at his slackened face and blanked eyes. Finally she struggles to her feet and backs away, her eyelids fluttering as she raises a hand and wipes at her pounding forehead.

Hands catch her elbows as she realizes that it is quiet, and all the attention is on her. Her eyes move to Negan like a reflex.

He is still standing in front of Sean, Lucille propped on his shoulder as he watches her curiously. All she can do is stare back and lean into the hands holding her up. Finally his eyes cut away and a satisfied grin stretches his lips as he looks down at Sean.

“Like I said, gruesome shit. Lucky for you, I’m just gettin’ started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo yeah, all that happened. And even more to happen in the next one!  
Any feedback is received with open arms, thank you for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand here we are.   
I just want to take a minute to thank everyone that is reading this. And all of you beautiful people that comment and leave kudos, thank you from the bottom of my heart! It really means a lot to us poor tortured writers!  
No warnings for this chapter beyond the normal graphic violence. (lol normal for Negan, anyway)

The sawmill isn’t what Carl had expected. He’d pictured something big, sprawling like the Sanctuary. What they actually find is a small warehouse, surrounded by a gravel lot and enclosed by chain-link fence to separate it from the forest. Several cars and two logging trucks sit abandoned in the lot, slowly rusting out.

From where he stands next to Negan in the shadows of the trees, Carl watches a three man team patrol along the inside of the fence. At one point they pass directly in front of him, yards away. But Daryl has chosen their spot well, and the men’s eyes slide over him without pause. He doesn’t remove his hand from his gun where it sits on his leg, but he does loosen his grip. The fact that his hand doesn’t tremble and his stomach is calm doesn’t occur to him.

This is the second time now that Negan has given the gun to him, and somewhere in the back of his mind there is a tight spot of anxiety over what he might have to do with it. He wouldn’t mind actually using it in a fight, but he has a feeling that if he pulls the trigger tonight it won’t be in the heat of the moment.

He hopes he doesn’t have to. He hopes Lucille is too thirsty to allow it.

Beside him Negan is eerily still and silent where he is propped against a tree trunk, barely even a lean shadow in the night. Carl can just make out the glint of his eyes in the low lighting from the quarter moon.

_He belongs here in the darkness,_ Carl thinks as he turns his head a bit and his cheek brushes the drawn up hood of his jacket. _So do you._

Arat and Liam are out there somewhere in the woods, Daryl too. Waiting for the signal.

Just as a cool night breeze slithers over them – fall will hit soon – it finally comes. Negan whistles loudly into the darkness, that familiar two-tone chord that has never fails to make Carl’s hair stand on end. Over fifty voices join him effortlessly in the blackness, and Negan’s fanfare sounds from every direction around the sawmill seamlessly.

The guards freeze, taking the announcement for the wordless threat that it is. Then they run shouting into the building. As the door bangs shut behind them, the whistles die off. When the door doesn’t open again, Carl watches as Negan lifts a radio to his leering mouth.

“Alright limpdicks, the party is _over_. Elvis has left the fucking building, and you are not as slick as you thought you were. You wanted Negan? Well, _here I am_.” Carl winces slightly as Negan’s confident voice echoes from several directions all around, broadcast from speakers in some of the vehicles. Another of Eugene’s ideas. The enemy couldn’t attack if they couldn’t tell what direction to go. “So, listen up Seany-boy. ‘Cuz I’m only gonna say this once.”

There is a long pause, and Carl’s sure that inside the building there is a mad-scramble for guns. These men don’t seem like the type that will take Negan’s offer.

“How the rest of tonight goes depends entirely on _you_. Give up your guns and come out of that shithole right now, and this can be very simple. You and your men can make it out of this alive. Well, most of ‘em. Maybe I’ll even let you go on home to Eddy.” The brightness of Negan’s teeth vanishes with his smile in the shadows, and when he speaks again there is grim wrath in his tone. “Oh, and one more thing. You bring out the person you took. Hand her over nice and easy. And for your sake, I sure hope she’s unharmed! Or there will be some _dire_ _fucking_ _consequences_.

“Ball’s in your court asshole. You got two minutes.”

The radio cuts off, and even though he knows its coming Carl jumps as the siren starts to wail. It’s on the speakers too, so tremendously loud that even if he were to shoot his gun he’s not sure he’d hear it. Headlights cut on all around the chain-link fence, and suddenly vehicles are swerving around it and kicking up a cloud of dust, obscuring the building’s view of the tree line.

It’s perfect, Daryl and his team will be able to sneak into the back of the building unseen and unheard as Sean and his men prepare to fight out of the front.

Sometimes it still unnerves him, just how _good_ Negan is at all of this. But a bit of pride worms its way through the worry, because Carl knows that he’s getting better at it too.

With that thought he tilts his chin up, his single eye looking on with keen interest as the two minutes slowly wind down.

There’s maybe twenty seconds left on the clock when the doors of the sawmill bust open and men pour out in a clamor of gunfire. The siren cuts abruptly as the Savior’s answer the call with diligence. Carl wants to draw and take part, but Negan still leans casually against the tree, watching it all. So he stays.

Quickly one of the big trucks busts through the chain-link effortlessly, and then vehicles pile into the lot as the Saviors round up the men and force them onto the ground.

When it’s done, there are maybe a dozen bodies strewn bloody on the gravel and the ones left alive kneel at gunpoint.

Only then does Negan move.

Carl stays back and watches him for a moment. Catalogues the swagger in his step, the way Lucille twirls through the air before coming to rest feather-light on Negan’s right shoulder. To all appearances, the man doesn’t have a care in the world.

Why then, has he had a frosty gleam in his eyes all day?

Carl follows quickly, jogging to join Liam where he stands in front of Negan’s jeep. He holds his M16 casually, but straight shoulders and a clenched jaw give away how ready he is to pull the trigger. Sometimes Carl thinks there is more than one Liam behind those flashing eyes.

Negan stops in front of the group, and everyone waits as his gaze roves over each kneeling man. Carl looks at them too, and feels his spine stiffen when he spies Ron hunched over in the dirt.

How had he gotten here? He stares for a minute, expecting to feel the familiar revulsion at the man’s wounds. He glares hard at the missing fingers and frowns to himself when barely a twitch of remorse hits his chest. Mostly he’s just angry.

Negan had spared the man, given him another chance. And _this_ was what he’d done with it?

Battling a sneer he looks away, and finally notices the man that is sitting straight and staring Negan dead in the eye. He may be kneeling, but he reminds Carl of a snake. Coiled and ready to spring into action. This must be Sean.

Of course Negan has already detected him. He halts a few paces in front of Sean and watches him with a flattened mouth and narrowed eyes. Carl feels his heart pick up speed as he waits for Negan to speak, the deadened air distending as the Saviors look on with guns raised.

Finally Negan’s expression shifts to cavalier, a smile stretching wide into his whiskers as a deep-rooted chuckle resounds from his throat. “Well look what we have here. Seany-boy? That you?”

The man – young man, Carl realizes. He can’t be more than five or six years older than Carl himself. He sneers up at Negan, teeth glistening as his lips curl. But he doesn’t speak.

Negan doesn’t seem to mind. The tilt of his shoulders, the tension of his straight back, the slow paces he makes to the left of Sean as his eyes flash argent in the headlights – every inch of him is predatory, a pride lion watching a wounded hyena. The hum of amusement that leaks from his lips is a final sinister admonition.

“So here we are,” Negan’s arms raise outwards to gesture to the scene, Lucille propelled out over the crowd aggressively. Then his arms fall and he takes a step towards Sean, his face coming down so that its only inches above the other man’s as his voice drops. “Probably not how you imagined it, huh?”

Negan is still chuckling when Sean lunges, a baneful expression morphing his face as he lurches to his feet in one swift move and boosts forward.

Carl flinches into movement, drawing his gun swiftly. But before he can raise it Sean is back in the dirt, clutching his stomach and choking for air from where he’d taken the brunt of a jab from Lucille. Negan is sneering down at him, his laugh lines prominent as his mouth folds down.

For a split second Carl thinks he will rear Lucille back and end it right there. Instead Negan leans down and pulls Sean up by his ear until he is kneeling again, their faces close as Negan examines the man. Carl knows that look, when Negan is staring straight into your inner self and there is nowhere to hide.

“Now, just remember,” it’s the death rasp that leaves Negan’s lips, the half-whisper that he only uses when he’s in that place he goes right before Lucille takes her due. “You had a choice.”

Then it’s Negan that springs, two steps forward and Lucille comes down like a hammer. The man at Sean’s side never even sees it coming. There is a whir as Lucille cleaves through the air, and the chunk of a powerful hit, and Carl thinks that he’ll never remember baseball the same as he watches blood dart through the air. The body falls forward limply, Negan has either killed the man in one hit or at the very least knocked him unconscious.

There isn’t a moment’s pause before Lucille strikes again, and Carl can’t pull his eyes away from the bat as it arcs with each of Negan’s practiced swings. He forces himself not to count them, or to watch the way the skull caves and crumbles away with each one until there’s barely even the stump of a neck left.

When Negan is finally satisfied, he backs away and Lucille rises up in front of him. She is a horrid panoply of the mellifluous matter of men, dripping with the viscous remains of what had been thought and memory minutes before. Carl’s throat is filled with sand as he focuses on Negan’s face instead. 

Normally he is almost manic with glee after Lucille has had her wrath, but instead his face is granite and his mouth is forbidding as he strides back to Sean and holds the bat in front of his nose. The man pays it no mind, his eyes locking with Negan’s in a dangerous gaze.

The back of Carl’s neck tingles as he looks on, off put by the odd heat in the man’s eyes. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by his situation, or the deaths of his men.

Neither of them look away, but Negan sees something that clearly pleases him. The smile that spreads is triumphal, a pitiless baring of teeth.

Carl spots movement to his side, and he turns his head to better see Daryl and his group leave the doors of the sawmill. Daryl and Gary are in the lead, each of them helping to prop up a woman between them. Carl squints as he looks at her, trying to make sure he is seeing her right as she is carried through the Saviors towards Negan.

Daryl calls to him, and Carl watches their leader turn at his name. Sees the smile slip and the eyes narrow to dangerous slits as he takes in the woman’s state. Understandably so. 

She is coated in blood.

It is so heavy on her that for the most part Carl can’t make out her skin tone beneath it. It covers nearly her entire face. Splattered over her forehead and eyes before dripping down to where the tide begins on her high cheekbones and nose. He can faintly see the shadows of bruises under it. Her nostrils, mouth, and ears are all covered, and it has even washed into her tied back hair and dried in the strands. Her neck is entirely crimson, except for the smudged ring where clearly someone has wrung her throat. Even through the red Carl can make out the bruises forming.

Her shirt is red – naturally, he can tell by the half of her left sleeve where the blood has drawn a line in the fabric. But the rest of it is too dark, mostly dried stiff against her frame. Her jeans are black, but Carl knows what blood looks like on dark cloth and they seem untouched. He bites back a shiver at wondering why her pants wouldn’t be covered too, and shies away from thinking about what she must have gone through.

He wonders how much of the blood is hers.

Aside from her bruises there are obviously intentional cuts on her neck. If he’s not mistaken there is also a wound on her side that is still bleeding, if slowly.

Finally he looks away from her, his stomach tight. If he has noticed all of that, Negan has too. Probably more besides, from where he stands in front of her and looks down into her face.

His expression is blank, at most what one might call thoughtful. But Carl knows that look, can _feel_ the calculation behind the flattened mouth and focused attention.

She is far from unharmed, and Negan is furious.

The threats that drip from his mouth as he turns back to Sean make Carl’s blood run cold, and he tries to imagine what myriad of nightmares Negan will dream up for these men now that the reason they’d come hadn’t been returned to him in the same state she’d left.

His thoughts are cut off when said woman bolts from between Daryl and Gary, and ice carves into him as her hand comes up with a bared knife as she charges forward. But going against his fear, she dashes past Negan and throws herself forward onto another of the kneeling men.

The relief that floods him leaves him dizzy. He pushes it away and instead watches as several of the Saviors step forward to stop her where she wrestles with the man in the dirt. The sounds that leave her are savage, shrill shrieks of fury as she finally reels back and the blade in her hand hits the man’s chest.

Carl hears the impact, a dull thud that is followed by the man’s harsh cry of pain.

Negan’s out held hand halts the Saviors, and they back away as her attack continues. Carl shifts slightly on his feet as she stabs into the man’s chest several more times, and then has to look away to avoid wondering what could have caused that sort of frenzy.

He catches Negan’s expression. The corners of his mouth are twitching, and a dark curiosity swallows his eyes as he watches the woman murder. He looks impressed.

When she finally staggers back and is caught in Daryl and Gary’s arms again, several of the Saviors in the lot shift and look away from her. Carl blinks. They are used to Negan’s tithing of blood, and all of them can and have beaten or killed, but he wonders how many of them have ever seen anything like her.

“Like I said, gruesome shit. Lucky for you, I’m just gettin’ started.”

There is a twinkle in Negan’s eyes that tells Carl whatever had been on the agenda is changing. What’s ahead will be something far more sinister to suit the leader’s mood.

Lucille gestures backwards, and Negan nods to Daryl. “Get her in the jeep.”

It’s a good thing that Daryl and Gary do exactly that. They are nearly to the dark vehicle where Liam and Carl are still standing when the woman’s knees buckle and she slumps, her eyelids fluttering as her head lolls. They carry her the rest of the way and she is placed in the back seat as gently as they can manage. Carl hopes she makes it, it’d be a shame for her to survive whatever she’s been through only to expire before they can get her back to Carson.

Once the jeep door closes Carl’s attention moves back to Negan and Sean. His spine stiffens at the twisted smirk that Sean wears, his eyes still pinned to the jeep.

“I knew that she was one of yours. No matter what I asked, she wouldn’t say a single word.” Sean’s voice is…unsettling. It’s high pitched and wispy, and he talks slowly and over-pronounces his words. Carl shifts on his feet and glares at the man. He hasn’t actually said it, but he doesn’t need to. They’d tortured her.

“I hear that you keep a harem. Is she one of them? She must be, she’s too beautiful not to.” He sucks his bottom lip loudly and jerks forward, his eyebrows arching high as his eyes flare. Rings of white shine around his irises. “She would have been nice to keep, pretty and quiet. I would have liked having her after my men were finished breaking her in.”

Carl grimaces and looks to his boots, anger and disgust welling together in his throat.

He remembers a night on the road, what seems a lifetime ago. His skin pebbles and he bites his cheek as he pushes away memories of a heavy, foul body on top of his. Stinking breath and mean hands pressing at him. He thinks of what his dad had done to save him, and wonders what the woman had done to save herself.

Suppressing the memories and the fear with a deeply indrawn breath, he looks back to Negan.

He is forebodingly still, standing with one hand tucked into his pants pocket with Lucille hanging at his side, ready for another round of butchery. His head is slightly tilted to the right, his attention focused down to the rotting human garbage on the gravel. Try as he might, Carl can’t glean a hint at his current thoughts. There is nothing in his face, and his eyes have darkened enigmatically to an emotion that Carl isn’t familiar with.

The Saviors are purposefully silent, Carl wonders if they even breathe as they wait for Negan’s next action. Everyone present is well aware of Negan’s rules, including those concerning rape.

He shoots a glance over to Daryl where the man leans with his crossbow on his shoulder. Even he seems off put, his eyes narrow as they flick between Negan and Sean.

This night has just taken a very swift turn in a very new direction.

Lucille rises slowly until she is held out threateningly over the group of kneeling prisoners. She is the antithesis of an olive branch, wicked and damnable in every way. Thin lines of crimson have rolled down the handle and meshed under the leather of Negan’s grip, a devilish statement of ownership.

Carl thinks of an old saying, it had been in a book of Shakespeare that Negan had made him read. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. It’s wrong, outdated. Now, as the dead walk and feast on the living there are no kings. There’s only Negan. 

Finally, dark eyes flit away from Sean and rove over the other men behind him. Negan reappraises the body of the dead man where he lays, that knife still jutting out from his chest. The woman’s actions have a bloodcurdling new meaning now, and it’s obvious from the way feet shuffle and hands tighten on weapons that everyone has realized it.

Then Negan looks at Ron.

The man had seemed to be holding it together, though he was a trembling mess where he crouched. Now with Negan’s full attention, a new layer of sweat beads on his skin and his mouth saws wordlessly.

Negan doesn’t speak. He simply turns and meet’s Carl’s eye, the unspoken command obvious.

The gun is already in his hand. Pulled so easily from its holster earlier when Carl had been ready to shoot to protect Negan’s life. It should be a simple thing, raising it on the same man’s order now.

But his blood is pounding in his ears, he can _feel_ it pumping through the artery in his neck and up into his head as a rush of suspense and panic breaks over him. His stomach knots and sinks as his heart rises to sit at the base of his throat, thumping to remind him that _he’s_ still alive and that he didn’t waste _his_ chance.

It’s the new world, and in the new world there are no easy choices.

So with a clipped breath, Carl raises the gun. Takes his time to aim down the sight. The stray thought passes that this would have been so much easier with two eyes – he’d been merciful and kind before. Look what that had gotten him.

He’d forgotten how reassuring it felt to fire a gun. The weight of cool steel and the clap of a bullet are in so many of his memories, embedded into him deeper than his own name. As he squeezes the trigger and the familiar kick rolls up the bones of his arm, he remembers.

The bullet hits solid in the center-left of Ron’s chest, as true to the man’s heart as Carl can manage. He buckles and tilts in the air before his body collapses from the strain, but Carl doesn’t look away. He watches as Ron dies in the dirt, his forefinger rubbing along the barrel of the glock just above the trigger.

“Now,” the casually fatal tone of Negan’s low voice is familiar, and pulls Carl’s eyes away from Ron’s limp face. Negan is looking over the captives, Lucille reclining against his shoulder as he paces. “The rest of you all have the chance to leave here alive. You get the opportunity to work for me.”

Carl blinks and keeps his face blank, surprised at this turn of events.

“It’s a stable job.” Negan’s eyes flicker and his mouth tilts in a smirk, and Carl is only more confused. “All you gotta do,” Lucille points menacingly at Sean where he watches Negan with malice “is beat this son of a bitch to death. Right here, right now.”

No one and nothing moves, though Carl spots the way eyes roll to Sean and stay pinned on him.

Negan’s ungloved fingers brush over the whiskers around his mouth, and his eyebrows arch expectantly. “Well?”

The mad scramble that ensues is pure chaos as the mob descends on their former leader. Carl doesn’t even try to keep track of the violence, choosing instead to watch the way Negan looks on with an eerie interest.

He flinches as a chill races up his spine.

Some of the men don’t take part. Six of them. Negan says something low to Arat and she and a few other Saviors pull them away and load them into a truck, hands tied and heads covered.

Sean’s body is a broken shell by the time the men that had followed him are done. When they finally back away, some of them even spit on his corpse. Carl cannot stop the disgusted glare from morphing his face as he watches them eye Negan for any sign of approval. He spots similar sentiment from many of the Saviors as Negan orders the men bound but not blinded and then loaded into vehicles.

While that is done Carl takes the opportunity to go to Daryl, who greets him with a familiar curt nod. He decides not waste any time with pleasantries either. “Who is she?”

Daryl eyes him sideways as he pulls a cigarette from his pack and lights it. The smoke puffs away from his mouth with every word.

“Name’s Lina. Loner he met a while back. Doctor. She was gonna come back to the Sanctuary, b’fore…” he gestures with a hand at the scene around them, and Carl eyes the bodies left sprawling on the ground. Ron and Lina’s victim have had their skulls chopped through. Carl looks down at the glock where it still rests in his hand and slowly holsters it, feeling dazed. Daryl blows smoke out above their heads and nods. “Gotta get my bike. See ya later.”

He nods and goes back to the jeep. Negan is already in the driver’s seat, Lucille stashed down next to his leg and one hand propped on the top of the wheel. As Carl climbs in he steals a glance at the woman. She is laying over the backseat, her head cushioned by the jacket – _her_ jacket – that they’d found that morning. Her eyes are closed, and he can see her chest rising as she breathes. He doesn’t _think_ there’s very much new blood, but it’s not an easy thing to tell.

Negan doesn’t speak as they peel out of the lot and lead the convoy home, but Carl notices that he is speeding faster than he normally drives and that his jaw is set as he stares ahead at the road.

He wants to ask him about the prisoners. About _why _Negan would want animals like that mixed in with the Saviors. But although the night is technically a success it hasn’t gone the way he knows Negan wanted, and there is an aura around him that prevents Carl from speaking up.

So instead he looks out the window and tries to understand.

It is terribly late when they get back to the Sanctuary. Carl’s eye is heavy with the sleep that his brain is crying for, and the ache of his body agrees. He pulls himself out of the jeep and watches as several Saviors take Lina from the back and hustle her inside, sure that she is going straight to Dr. Carson.

“Line ‘em up,” he hears Negan command, and whirls to watch as the prisoners are pulled into a neat line beside the vehicles. Negan gestures with a hand, and they are turned and pushed forward until they are a few steps from the fence. On the other side, tethered walkers coated in metal writhe.

Negan walks from one end of the line to the other, his eyes intent as he looks every man in the face. None of the captives can seem to decide whether to watch him or ogle the fence. With every step Negan takes, Carl feels his stomach slide lower. Lucille whirls in loops in his gloved hand, and Carl’s shoulders inch up around his ears. Once Negan reaches the end of the line, he turns and tucks his free hand into a pocket.

“Fellas,” Lucille gestures towards the chain-link. “Take a look at your new job.”

The bullets spray as his words end, all the way down the line Saviors fire mercilessly. Only once the gunfire dies and all the bodies have dropped, only then does Negan smile. He shakes his head, a single latent laugh escaping as he turns away and strides towards the entrance to the factory floor.

“Get ‘em on the fence.”

Numb, Carl watches as Liam nods and begins directing the bodies to be dragged to their destinations.

The door slams behind Negan, a strident boom that hits everyone left alive almost physically. It takes Carl two tries to swallow against his dry throat, his eye trailing two saviors as they haul a body across the dirt and catching on the blood trail left behind.

The air should be clear. Negan and the Saviors had won the day. Punishment had been meted out to all that had crossed them, they had gotten back the person they’d set out to retrieve, and Lucille’s thirst had been quenched in a river of lives. Life could start to settle again.

Why then, was there a prickling warning in the back of his mind?

-

Before, she had always had an acute sense of time. Even sleep had come with an awareness of where she was and how quickly the clock hands were ticking by. It had been immeasurably useful in medical school, and during her residency time in the ER.

Her mother had often joked about it over breakfast in her childhood, sighing that only the daughter of a Marine could inherit such a strict internal clock. Her father had grinned around his coffee mug and kept quiet.

But time was so fluid, now. There was no routine solid enough to be able to count the hours to, because every day there was a chance that chaos would come shambling to sink it’s teeth into new flesh.

So, when the first faint patterns of light began to form underneath her eyelids, and she realized she could feel cool air trickling in through her nostrils, she had absolutely no idea how long she had been out.

After that realization came the soft give of a pillow under her head, and a fleece blanket worn smooth at her fingertips.

The first crack of light as she started to open her eyes overwhelmed her. Too bright, too real. She squinted them closed again and focused on breathing, her eyebrows twitching when she realized that there was barely any pain from doing so. Just a constricting tightness that told her she was still hurt, and some painkillers were doing their work well.

At that curiosity grew and fluttered in her chest, and she could no longer resist letting her eyes slide open.

She was in a small room that seemed to have been converted to an infirmary. There was a window high on the wall, but it was dark and the only light came from a standing lamp in the corner. She occupied the lone bed, so she let her eyes wander over the rest of her surroundings. There were cabinets against one wall, countertops and a sink, a tall table covered neatly with assorted medical supplies that surely were there for her sake. Instinctively she catalogued what was sitting out.

At this point she realized that she was in a tank top and some kind of shorts beneath her blankets, and although she didn’t feel coated in blood she could still feel some of it on her. It was crusty in her hair.

She still trying to discern her full condition when she realized she wasn’t alone.

A woman sat propped on a stool by the only door, which was closed. She was reading a book, and hadn’t yet noticed Lina’s wakeful state. Which was a good thing, because at the sight of her every muscle in Lina’s body had gone rigid. Only after several deep breaths did it occur to her that if she had been given medical care, she surely was no longer being held captive. Was she?

Her eyes slammed shut again to buy herself time to think, and only after she’d taken multiple soothing breaths did she begin to remember the last moments before her unconsciousness. The fingers of her right hand twitched at the memory of the blade in Jose’s chest. Then everything else came pouring back, and she frowned at the memory of Negan’s dark gaze fixed on her in her bloodied and exhausted state.

That was right. He’d shown up with his people. Were they his soldiers?

_No, Saviors._

Her frown deepened as a corner of her mind supplied the term. A dim memory of Sean calling her that tickled at her, overshadowed by the pain she’d been in at the time. What in the world was a Savior?

Well, they _had_ saved her. That was enough, for now.

So then where was she? Was this Negan’s Sanctuary?

She peeked back at the woman at the door. Sun-bronzed terra cotta cheeks stretched as the woman smiled in amusement, whatever she was reading was at least entertaining. Was she a nurse, or a guard? Lina thought she could see a knife sheath peeking over the far side of the woman’s hips, but she didn’t see a gun.

She was still considering her situation when the woman’s eyes flicked up – it seemed practiced, she must have been on that stool for some time – and then shot wide. In a flash the book was closed and small booted feet hit the floor as she wheeled and pulled the door open to stick her top half out.

“Rani! She’s awake!”

The sound of running followed her words, and Lina’s eyebrows scrunched down as the door closed and the woman turned back to her. She gave a small smile as she crossed her arms, obviously waiting. “Uh, hi. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

Summoning a deep breath, Lina moved to push herself up from the pillow. Gathering her elbows underneath her she slowly leaned forward, careful not to jostle her left wrist which she now realized was in a splint. It felt tense, even if the painkillers were working.

She had just fully sat up when the door opened and a man entered. He was pale and tall, with dirty ginger hair combed messily and falling over his forehead. The heavy five o’clock shadow and the weary half-moons under his eyes completed a look she knew too well: overworked doctor.

He gave her a friendly smile and made his way to the side of her bed. “Hello, I’m Dr. Harlan Carson. This is my nurse, Ava. We’ve been taking care of you since you got here.”

Lina blinked and shot another glance at the woman by the door, who managed an awkward smile. “How long was I out?”

“A little over a day now, we’ve been giving you fluids and pain killers intravenously…I was beginning to worry that you might not wake up, you’ve-“

Harlan cut off as the door swung open again, and Lina’s right hand clenched on the blankets as Negan entered the room. He looked different than she was used to seeing him. No leather jacket, just a dark shirt and grey pants. His hair wasn’t slicked back neatly like she remembered, it was even a little mussed on the shortened sides above his ears. The familiar sight of his bat in his hand gave her more comfort than it should have.

His presence shifted the mood of the room drastically. The nurse – Ava – zipped her eyes to the floor and stepped back against the wall next to her stool, and Lina watched as Harlan took a deep breath and stood a little straighter.

If Negan noticed any of this, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead his eyes roved over Lina’s form as though he were logging her current status and comparing notes. When he finally seemed satisfied, his bat gestured to Harlan easily. “Well Doc, don’t let me stop you.”

She took note of the way Harlan’s left eyebrow twitched as he turned back to her. “I think it would be best to go over your injuries. You’ve got at least four cracked ribs. It’s possible one of them is broken but without an x-ray it’s impossible for me to tell. Beyond that you’ve got a grade two sprain in your wrist. Frankly, I’m shocked that it’s not a grade three but I don’t think any of the ligaments are completely torn.”

At this Lina sighed and looked down at her wrist with a frown. It probably had only been a minor sprain to begin with, but with everything that had happened after the crash…She shied away from a flash of bloody images that pushed at her awareness and looked back at Harlan.

“I’d say that keeping the splint on for about a week is a good idea, and keeping it elevated in a sling for a day or two will only help matters.” Lina nodded in agreement at this. “Now, for this part I’m going to need your help. I’m sure you have a concussion but I’m not certain how bad it is. You’ve got bruising on the left side of your head under your hair, but no bleeding from it that I can see. And you don’t have any of the emergency signs that I’d be able to see for myself, so I have some questions.”

Lina nodded frankly to him, looking down at the dark green fleece blanket covering her torso and legs. Her right hand fingers began to pluck at the edge, watching as flimsy pine colored strings thin as spun sugar gave and fell away under her fingernails. “I understand.”

“When do you first remember any pain in your head?”

She bit the inside of her cheek as the crash came back to her. Sitting sideways, still strapped into the seat. The pavement so close to having annihilated her brains.

“It happened at the crash. After the SUV rolled I was stuck in the backseat and I had to get myself out. I was really dizzy, and it was difficult to get my arms to work the way I wanted. Once I made it out, I nearly passed out on the pavement. And then…well, it was only a few more minutes before I lost consciousness. I’m not sure for how long.” She sighed and brought her right hand up to rub at an eye. “It’s certainly on the severe scale. I don’t recall any nausea but I was dizzy and out of sorts even after I woke up, and it took me a few minutes to remember everything that had happened before I passed out.”

This didn’t please the doctor at all, and he proceeded to question her for several more minutes about her symptoms as well as ask her some things that anyone her age would be able to answer easily – who the last president had been, what day did the outbreak go global, what was the capital of the country, even some basic math.

Once he seemed content he finally nodded and turned to a spiral notebook he had sitting on the table. She watched him make notes, her lips twitching at his typically messy handwriting. Even in the apocalypse, some stereotypes still held true.

“Alright, now that we have that figured out – your other injuries. We may as well start with your throat. You may feel quite a bit of soreness there as the bruising heals, and your voice is a little scratchy but I think it should be fine. The rest of your bruises should heal easily enough with time. The cuts…” At this her eyes fell back down the blanket in her lap. It almost felt as though every wound made itself known all over again, throbbing on her skin. “How were they inflicted?”

She resisted flinching at the purely medical question, and bit her cheek before answering. “A knife.”

There was an austere drawn silence, and the weight of Negan’s attention seemed to sink into her skin and pull at her like gravity. He’d been watching her interaction with Harlan the entire time, focused just like the other times she’d seen him. But she had been aware – and going by how tense Harlan’s shoulders were, so had he – of a maelstrom brewing on Negan’s side of the room, polluting the air with tension.

Finally Harlan swallowed and nodded jerkily. “Right. Well, the only ones I’m really concerned with are on your neck. The ones on your leg and stomach aren’t deep enough to need stitches, and by the time they’re healed they’ll barely leave a mark. But your neck…Ahem, well the bite marks were incredibly concerning before I was able to verify that they weren’t from a walker. Frankly I thought about stitching two of the wounds – although they aren’t too deep – but the teeth marks make it very difficult. Instead I think we’ll just need to keep them clean and bandaged and see how they do.”

She acknowledged his words with a nod, cringing internally at the thought of Allen’s teeth and tongue on her skin, tracing through her blood.

Harlan’s throat cleared, and her eyes flicked back up to noticed that his skin had gone a little pink with embarrassment. But his eyes were sincere. “Ah…well, that is Ava did an examination to make sure you didn’t have any other injuries. She said there wasn’t anything noticeable, but we do have some morning after pills available if-”

“There’s no need.” She cut herself off and swallowed at the high-pitched tone of her voice, resisting the urge to fidget as disgust rolled in her stomach at the memory of fingers tightening on her underwear, gripping her thigh. “They didn’t…I got out before…” she cleared her throat, “thank you for offering, though.”

Harlan’s eyes softened and he nodded with a half-smile. “Alright. Well, I think at this point we should get some real water and food into you if you think you can manage.”

“I…yes, I think I could.”

“Great. Ava, if you could please?” The woman in question nodded and dipped out of the door without a word. “After you’ve eaten what you can, it wouldn’t hurt to sleep more. It’s actually very late right now, and rest is certainly the best thing for you-”

“Thanks, Doc.” Lina twitched as Negan’s voice cut through the air, and she was sure that his eyes were arrowing into her as she stared resolutely at the two peaks in the blanket that her feet made. “You can go back to your beauty sleep now, I’m sure you’ll need to be up bright and early to come check on our patient.”

She got the feeling that Harlan wanted to argue, as one moment slowly ticked by into another with dead silence. But instead she watched him nod from under her eyelashes, and with one last smile at her he was out of the door.

She took a deep breath and let her eyes trail up to the splint on her arm. It was the generic dark blue kind that could have been found in any hospital or doctor’s office back in the day. The fact that there was even one here at the Sanctuary meant that they took care to scavenge for medical supplies, even the items that weren’t immediately useful to the average survivor.

“Sweetheart,” She jumped at the low rumble of Negan’s voice, biting her top lip at the way it smoothed over her. “You ever gonna look at me again or are we playing some kind of damn opposite to a staring match?”

She sighed and tilted her head up, letting her gaze settle into his where it was pinned to her face. His eyes were every bit as sharp and intelligent as they had been when he’d first looked up at her that day in the warehouse, and she shivered and stayed silent.

Finally his eyelids dipped and his jaw cocked to the side, and she couldn’t help but see the way the tips of his whiskers caught the lamplight. “Just say it, Lina.”

Apprehension stair-stepped up her spine as she gnawed on her cheek, her fingers twisting in the blanket as she let the words escape in a rushed breath. “It’s your fault.”

He didn’t immediately react, his face carved from granite as his eyes twinkled at her dangerously. She sighed and looked back down at her hands.

“Not just yours, though. It’s my fault too.”

His head tilted at this, following the lean of his shoulders as his Adam’s apple and the vein on the side of his neck showed in contrast against his skin. “Excuse me?”

Her lips parted as she drew in a deep breath. “I was stupid. I shouldn’t have ever gotten into that car. I _shouldn’t_ have let you past my gate.” She frowned and let her eyes slip closed as regret flooded her. “I shouldn’t have ever spoken to you to begin with. This…this is just what happens when I take chances.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” His words belted through the air as he stepped towards her, that morbid bat clattering as he slammed it down on the table on his way to her. Then he was arched over her, propped against the mattress on his long arms and boring into her head with eyes ablaze. “You’re a goddamn idiot if you are trying to tell me that those,” his head tilted to the cuts that were exposed above the collar of her shirt, “are anyone’s fault but the asshole that made them. Now, if I have misjudged you so terribly and you are in fact a moron please enlighten me right _fucking_ now.”

Her teeth clenched tightly as she glared back up at him, feeling the blanket give against her tight grip as her back went ramrod straight. “I don’t care if you think I’m an idiot! I took care of my damn self just fine for a long time before you came along, and if it wasn’t for you and that ridiculous fucking smile I wouldn’t be in this mess! I don’t care if I’m two minutes from bleeding the fuck out, come morning I am _out_ of here. Give me my weapons and my bags and I’m leaving. I don’t need this place and I don’t _need_ you!”

Only after she was done speaking did she realize she’d been screaming up into his face, her hoarse voice breaking on every sentence. Her heart climbed high into her throat as her eyes flew wide, still caught in his. Whatever air had been in the room was gone, and she didn’t breathe as she watched his pupils retract and then flare wide until his eyes were nearly black above her.

Suddenly her heart was racing for a very different reason, as his head dipped lower so that their noses brushed and their air mingled. His breath smelled like whiskey, and she wondered what he’d been doing before coming to this room. Had he been awake? She wished she knew what had happened after she’d passed out, what he’d been doing while she’d been asleep.

“Darlin’,” his voice was a raspy velvet, quiet and so low that his words were heavy vibrations against her mouth. “You are stayin’ right here until I fuckin’ say so, and we both know it.”

She wanted to bristle up at him, let him feel the anger that sparked at his words. But to her dismay it fell as quickly as it rose, replaced by exhaustion and a keen interest for the man above her that she did her best to stamp down. Instead she turned her head slightly away from him, her eyes flicking to Lucille on the table, considerably cleaner than the last time Lina had seen the bat.

“I’m tired,” she finally told him quietly, resisting closing her eyes at the soft brush of his breath over her cheekbone.

It should have reminded her of Allen, made her skin crawl – she knew. Instead it pushed away the trauma of her last waking day and reminded her of their shared drink on her loveseat, of his comforting presence on her patrol. It didn’t make sense, but it felt…right. Safe.

She was going to have to figure _that_ out later, when she felt up to it.

A hum is his only acknowledgement, and finally he leant away from her and straightened out. “Better get some sleep then, sweetheart. Gonna need you bright eyed and bushy tailed soon enough.”

An amused chuckle at himself is what he left her with as he picked up his bat and strolled out the door with a wink. Once he was gone she blinked and let her breath escape heavily, puzzled at how her life had flipped a one-eighty so dramatically and so quickly.

-

_“It’s my fault too.”_

Negan grinds his teeth as he looks over the inventory books, pencil tap tap tapping against his thigh as he reads. Fall will be coming soon, and with the influx of perishables from the harvests at Hilltop he’ll need to send a crew of workers to start canning and preserving everything they can spare. Last winter had been pretty damn mild, he wonders if this one will be the same.

Her fucking fault, she’d said. Those fern eyes glowing up at him balefully as she’d admonished herself for the tortured state of her body. His fingers tighten on the pencil as he remembers the wounds sitting on her neck and collarbone, the garish bite marks clamped into them. If they aren’t a perfect summary of the awful shit she’d been through he’s not sure what is.

He thinks of Sean’s men, out there on the fence where creatures like them belonged. They’d been all too happy to end their leader, and the idiots had thought that he’d trust them to guard his back? His people? Not likely.

Once someone is a traitor, it’s in their bones. Loyalty just becomes a veneer worn to disguise the rot underneath. He’s built too much to let it fall because of some turncoat worm.

The outposts are running well. Simon reports finding a cache of canned foods in a bunker beneath an old house. Dwight has recruited two new people, a wandering couple that seem all too happy to have the protection of Savior’s guarding walls around them. The others have nothing new, but no problems either and that’s what he likes.

He has six men sitting in darkened cells below him. They hadn’t moved to kill Sean when he’d asked. He wonders idly whether it was because they were better men than the rest or just cowards. A few days of listening to the world’s most obnoxious song with no sleep and he’s sure he’ll know.

Lina sure as shit wasn’t one, that was well and truly proven. The team he’d left behind to search the sawmill for supplies had reported what they had found in one of the rooms. Two bodies, both men. One of them with a throat slit clean with a blade, but the other one had died from much more grisly shit. She’d bitten his damn throat out, like some fucking wild thing.

Just thinking of it gives him a thrill of fascination.

It definitely explained the blood that she’d looked to have bathed in when she’d come stumbling out with Daryl. She’d carved her way out of there with her goddamn _teeth_.

He wonders how many of his Saviors would have the backbone to do that.

_She’s something special, all right._

And she’d wanted to leave. He snorts, flipping the page and examining the reported status of the pipes and running water of the Sanctuary. Not likely, that’s for damn sure. The woman was a fucking _gift. _A doctor that could cut someone open as easy as sew them shut, and sexy to boot? He’s not sure who’s good graces he’s landed in, but he hopes he stays there if this is the kinda shit that’ll be sent his way.

Later, he’s licking his lower lip and appraising the new bullet counts from Eugene when the image of her pupils blowing wide beneath him forms behind his eyes. The way her eyelids had dipped and her lips had parted as their noses had brushed.

He wonders what she’ll be like once she’s used to her place here and healed up properly. He can’t wait to find out. And he will, because she’s not going anywhere. Not now that he’s got her behind the Sanctuary’s walls.

She’s his now, just like everything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)  
Welp Lina's out of the shits now, at least. I mean probably ahahahaaaa...  
Thank you for reading. Any feedback is appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split this and the next chapter in two, its just too much all in one. Which annoys me, considering the fact that I re-wrote some of this three times before I liked it. *sigh*   
It is no easy task keeping Negan as in character as I want him to be.   
Anywho, no violence in this chapter that I need to warn ya'll about. Enjoy!

The next time Lina wakes up, it’s far less disconcerting. The room is familiar by now, and the green blanket hugs her body comfortingly as she blinks away the darkness of her dreams and wipes her wet eyes.

She actually had been able to stomach some food the night before, under Ava’s watchful gaze. The woman had barely said a word to her, seemingly too shy to start a conversation. But, she had caved into Lina’s repeated requests to bathe. The fact that the Sanctuary not only had power but running water impressed her greatly, even if the showers were communal.

No one else had been in the bathrooms that late, and Ava had stood against the wall nearby in case Lina had trouble while she washed.

She was no stranger to washing away blood, walker or human, but it had taken her an obnoxiously long time to pick away the dried remnants that were stuck on her skin. Scrubbing the crumbly bits out of her hair had been especially fun. By the times she’d been done, her fingers had pruned and she was woozy from the heat and the exertion, every part of her over-warm and aching.

She hadn’t felt so good in days.

She blinks and sits up in the bed. Whatever pain medication Harlan had dosed her with the night before, it has long worn off now. Her cracked ribs stab at her in protest of every breath she takes, her wrist is throbbing and tense in the splint, the bullet graze on her right hip is stinging and the rest of her body protests even being awake. She feels like a piece of rotten fruit, left too long on the ground and ready to fall apart, barely holding together beneath her skin.

On the bedside table there is an unopened bottle of water and a bottle of painkillers. Ava had left it there the night before, seeming pleased that Lina hadn’t needed instructions on how many to take.

She pops the cap and swallows two pills dry as her fingers fumble with the water bottle. Holding it and twisting to break the seal takes more effort than she wants to admit to herself. She gulps half the bottle greedily and then breathes heavily, ignoring the nerves in her torso screaming at her.

Instead she eyes the window and the square of faraway sky she can spy from it. She spots the barely existent grey of early dawn and feels her heart flutter. Her first waking day in this place.

Her eyes roll to the door, a curious thought slipping in and stirring her from the bed. On silent feet she creeps to it and tests the handle – unlocked. She smiles. Not Negan’s prisoner after all. Her bags are in the corner of the room. Her weapons are missing but the clothes, essentials, and the couple of books she’d packed are there and waiting patiently for her needs.

Dressing is a chore, and more than once she has to pause and lean against the wall to breathe as she pulls on her leggings. They brush the cuts on the outside of her thigh, and the band settles over the bandage over her bullet wound. She hisses but keeps going. She sits down on the bed to do the rest, losing her breath when she pulls on her socks and cursing at the sports bra when it hits one of her ribs the wrong way, frowning at the half of her torso that is a riot of violet, navy and olive green bruising.

She tugs on a black tank top and a grey and black plaid button down over that. Her hair is still in its braid from the night before, and she leaves it that way as she stomps into her boots. Her grey jean jacket had been folded on top of one of the bags, but it’s ruined. Splattered with specks of her own blood and torn down the right side where she’d caught it on the glass of the SUV’s window. She doesn’t like the loss. The jacket has been with her for a long time, it had seen a lot. She pouts and folds it gently, tucking it into a bag.

The door gives quietly, opening into the hallway. She leans against the doorway and peeks her head out. It’s empty as a ghost town, and she doesn’t wait for someone to round the corner. She closes the door and hustles down the hall, past the showers, until she reaches the staircase she’d spotted the night before.

She doesn’t spare a glance for the stairs leading down, and quickly swings herself onto the ones that will take her higher. She wants to jog up them, but doesn’t. Doing so will make more noise than she wants. Her decision has nothing to do with her clipped breathing or the weakness of her legs. Up and up she goes, surpassing the floors the stairs take her to as the painkillers take effect and her body is only mildly buzzing with a low ache.

Some miracle of luck helps her, and no one passes her on the stair case. At one point she sees two women walking the opposite way down a hall, but they open a door and disappear. Apparently the occupants of the Sanctuary aren’t morning people. She smiles and keeps climbing, marveling at how massive this place is on the way.

Judging by the cement walls and exposed piping, it had been some kind of industrial building before the collapse. A warehouse or a factory is all she can guess. She wonders what had made people come here. Was it the size of the place? Had it been a large group that had needed the room?

Finally the stairs end in a small walkway that leads to a heavy metal door. She ignores the crick in her ribs as she pushes it open, annoyed by her heavy breathing and how tired she already is.

Beyond the door is a large cement roof. There are more exposed pipes, and all along one side massive solar panels run in an extensive row, waiting for the sun to appear for their industry.

She swivels her head until she can see where the faint silver of approaching day is tinting the horizon, and walks to that side of the roof. There is a cement lip around the edge, it stops just short of her knees. She halts in front of it and slowly lowers herself down until she is splayed out on the roof, aligning her body with the edge and resting her forearms on it. With a sigh, she plops her chin down onto her right arm – glaring at the splint - and watches the sky.

So, here she is. In the Sanctuary, just like Negan had wanted. A wave of homesickness trembles in her chest for her cottage, with its quiet trees and good firm fence. Her garden is going to go to shit. All that effort put into that stubborn broccoli for nothing. A disappointed sigh hisses past her lips, and her eyes drop from the sky to the ground below her.

If she’d thought the inside of the building was large, it’s nothing compared to the outside of this place. She spots outbuildings. There are big hulking metal shops with three or four garage doors apiece. She supposes that must be where the vehicles are stored, and maybe other things. Closer are a long row of greenhouses that clearly are a post-apocalyptic addition. They are surrounded by long blocks that she finally figures out are planters, filled with richly dark fertilized soil with leafy plants growing from them. After that, there is a large empty space of dirt before the factory itself, and as her eyes trace the lines of a lower section of roofing she realizes exactly how massive it is. This must have been some kind of industrial complex, it would have taken hundreds of people to work here.

Shaking her head at the sprawling mass of it all, so different from her little house, she casts her eyes out further. Beyond the sheds there is more empty dirt and grass for at least a few hundred yards before the ground finds a fence. It’s massive, made of large metal plating that she assumes must be steel. There are steel beams supporting it, where she assumes the pieces interlock. And beyond that there is even another fence. She has to squint, but it looks like chain link with – _something_ attached to it. It’s too far to tell, especially without strong sunlight.

She lets her eyes follow the fence for a while before she looks further, to the heavy forest that guards beyond it. The way she’s facing, there is nothing but the trees. She assumes that elsewhere there must be a road – or several – leading in and out.

Sean could never have taken this place.

She shakes her head of hideous memories and looks back at the sky. There are large clouds traveling across it today, with flat bottoms that give way to massive columns of wisp building into impressive formations, rising high into the air. Continents of their own making. She lets her attention roll over the shapes they make as slowly they are stained to amber and the sky is dyed crimson by the burgeoning sun.

She wants to be up there. Higher than any bird can fly. She wants to brush her fingertips into the ether and watch stars move around her, where no walker or knife or bullet can get her. Hot tears rush at the back of her eyes and spill forward, and she angrily wipes at them with her sleeve.

She keeps watching it all in silence, listening to the distant song of morning birds as they go about their industry.

She’s stuck here. Sure, she could technically leave. But it would be against Negan’s authority and her body is laughably unprepared for the risks of lone survival. She’d been full of bravado with her words about departing the night before, she’d known it even as she’d screamed them into Negan’s face. He clearly hadn’t been fooled either.

If she leaves now, she’ll die. Probably.

The risk isn’t worth it.

Remembering the night she’d climbed into the SUV at his behest, the explanation for why she’d done so is difficult to admit. Her lips tilt down as she remembers everything that had lead up to it – Negan’s unshakeable authority and resoluteness had been reassuring. He’d convinced her.

Loneliness. That had been the catalyst. She’d been alone for so long, to suddenly have Negan’s presence – smothering but comforting – wrapped around her…

Looking back, she’d been overwhelmed. She still is.

She draws in a long breath and ignores the protest of her ribs as she huffs it back out. So, back to being a doctor it is.

But even that isn’t simple, because she won’t be the only one. Harlan seems skilled, and Ava might be shy but Lina has a feeling the woman is no slump in an emergency. It will be like residency all over again. Those awkward first few weeks of finding her place, but worse.

_At least there won’t be walkers around the next corner._

Her eyes flick back to that impressive fence. The dead probably don’t get by that very easily, if at all. She looks back at the clouds – they are melting to a passion fruit pink outlined in gold – and wonders how long it will be before she has to kill more walkers. Maybe a long time, if this place is as strong as it seems. It’s a bizarre thought, but it’s shadowed by a heavy relief that is years in the making.

The sun is just barely clear of the horizon and the sky is bleeding from flaxen yellow to cornflower blue when she hears the door open behind her.

There is quiet cursing and she turns just in time to see a man lift a radio to his lips and mutter “It’s Gary. I found her on the roof, I’ll bring her down.”

There is a reply that crackles too lowly for her to hear, and he sighs before replying. “Got it.”

He is bald, with tanned sepia skin and a trimmed black beard. He has a muscular, tall frame that is covered by dull green cargo pants and a worn looking grey shirt. Squinting eyes beneath dark eyebrows and a frowning mouth give him a rugged look, the sort of man that doesn’t mind a fight. The radio drops from his mouth and he sighs again as he looks narrowly at her.

“Just stay there,” he says, walking a few feet closer.

She arches an eyebrow and shrugs, her eyelids twitching at the stretching burn of the cuts on her shoulder. “Where else would I go?”

Her voice is shamefully scratchy. He doesn’t respond as she turns her body so she’s resting with her back against the parapet. She wishes she’d brought that water bottle with her, her throat is dry.

It’s been several more minutes of him grumpily watching her when he finally asks “What the hell are you doing up here? You had the Doc shittin’ himself. And, just a word to the wise – don’t ever wake up Negan with bad news.”

She frowns and looks back at him. “I just needed some air.”

He snorts, rolling his eyes with a disappointed shake of his head. She rolls her own eyes in return and stares across the roof at the solar panels. She tries to ignore the way her body is screaming for more sleep and her stomach is whining for something to fill it.

“You seem familiar,” she changes the subject, “you were with Daryl the other night, right?”

“Yeah, Carrie, that was me.”

Despite herself she grins and huffs a laugh. “Okay, so am I in trouble or something?”

He is silent for long enough that her fingers clench on her thighs. His look is foreboding as he shrugs. “Not for me to decide.”

She’d been joking, but now a little leaden ball condensed in the pit of her stomach as she frowned.

Finally the sound of the door opening interrupts her worrying.

Of course, the only person that emerges is Negan.

He strides through and the door closes with a clap to announce his presence. She wonders if he goes anywhere without the world taking notice.

His jacket is unzipped to reveal a simple grey shirt, and he’s missing his red scarf in preparation for the heat of the day. Lucille is held in his ungloved hand not far from where the barbed wire ends, and hangs by his left thigh. Lina notices that his hair is wet and kills the thought of him in a shower as quickly as it forms. 

He doesn’t seem in nearly as much of a hurry to look at her, though. Instead he focuses on Gary as he walks towards them. “Gary,” his voice is low and unbothered, “what is my new doctor doin’ up on the roof?”

“She said she was getting some air.”

Negan’s jaw tilts sideways, his tongue rubs at a portion of his bottom lip, and Lina crosses her arms in annoyance. “Getting some air…” Lina resists glaring at him as his attention finally glides from Gary to her, the bat settling against his shoulder. If he’s upset, it only shows in the glint of his eyes and the fact that he doesn’t smile. “Thanks Gary, you can go.”

The wryness and frank dismissal in his voice is new to her. She doesn’t look away from him as the door is pulled closed and they are left alone, suddenly feeling as though doing so will be a sign of weakness that she refuses to show. So instead she stares straight into his eyes. When he still hasn’t spoken after what feels like an hour, she loses her patience.

“Why are looking at me like I’m a five year old you caught in the candy jar? Is there a law here against being on rooftops?” His lips twitch, and what she thinks is amusement stirs and warms in his eyes as his silence lingers. “I just…needed to think. I like watching the sun come up okay? It’s sort of my thing.”

She watches his thumb tap against Lucille’s smooth handle before he shifts and strides the rest of the distance to her. She is surprised when he lowers himself down and sits on the rooftop beside her – very close. Automatically she shuffles slightly away from him, making a barrier of several inches between them in silent rebellion. It doesn’t stop the hint of leather from leaking into her nostrils, and a pang of want tightens in her lower torso.

“Darlin’,” his voice carries a sanguine confidence that plucks at chords inside of her, in both the worst and best of ways. “it’s time you and I had a _talk_.”

Her eyebrows draw low as she looks up at him through her eyelashes. He brushes away her imposed no-man’s land with ease as he leans sideways until his shoulder nearly brushes hers, his neck stretching as his chin juts and his mouth hovers a few inches from her ear.

“Now, since we’ve broken all your old rules straight to hell, I’ve got new ones for ya.” She stiffens at this, and shoots him an indignant look. The deep hazel in his eyes flares as they narrow and a devilish smile quirks his lips. The morning light catches in his long eyelashes and on the bridge of his nose. This time it’s clear, the innuendo of his words is entirely purposeful. “Good news is, I think they’re just what the doctor ordered!”

He seems incredibly amused with himself, leaning back and watching her with his eyebrows arched, incisors bluntly dipping into his lower lip. She wants to hit him. Wants to slap that smirk off of his face, push him back onto the cement-

She blinks, her neck going rigid as heat throbs into her cheeks. What in the world is she thinking? He catches the flushing of her skin, his eyes narrowing as his head tilts back and his smile takes on a predatory edge.

“Things are very simple here, and they can be that way for you too. So listen close.”

He leans in until she can see the dangerous flecks of gold in his mischievous mahogany eyes as they catch the sunlight. She doesn’t even realize that her breathing stops as his gaze flickers over her face.

“It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do, at the end of the day everything and everyone here is mine. So, with that little golden nugget in mind, time to lay the cards on the table.” His head tilts towards her conspiratorially as his voice dips to a rumbling near-whisper. “Rule number one, and it’s the big one: From now on you work for me, you answer to me, and you belong to me.”

She doesn’t like that language. No one has ever controlled her and the idea of him doing so pricks uncomfortably at the back of her consciousness. But it’s clear that he doesn’t care to hear an objection, so she swallows her words and waits for the other shoe to drop as he pauses to appraise her. Hopefully she projects some form of calm confidence as she meets his gaze.

“Now, if you wanna come up on the fuckin’ roof every morning and sigh at the sunrise like some goddamn Disney princess, you feel _free_ to do that. Just as long as once you’re healed up, you report to the infirmary to work with Carson.” His lips curve as one corner rises in a smirk. “I want you to put those talented hands to _use_.”

The inside of her cheek should be bloody with how hard her teeth are clamped onto it to avoid giving him the sarcastic words that are boiling in her throat. She’s sure he knows as much too, given the chuckle that drips from his lips as he leans further into her space, his leather covered shoulders crouching as his face settles in front of hers.

“I don’t think I’m asking for too much here, am I?”

She’d been expecting something like this. Given what she knows about him, and what she remembers of the night he’d defeated Sean, it’s obvious that he rules with an iron fist. Or, she supposes, with a steel covered bat. She’d made peace with it while watching the sun break the horizon not too long ago. It’s not his question that is making her blood turn to lava as she stares at him, it’s the way he has presented it. Because she knows that not a single bit of what he has said so far has been a question.

So she inhales slowly and shakes her head, his eyes tracking her closely. “No, I understand.”

Negan’s answering hum is pleasantly contented, like a lion stretching in the shade on a hot day. “Good.”

She sighs inwardly, thinking that surely now he’s done amusing himself at her expense and he’ll leave. He’s bound to have more important tasks at hand than scolding her.

“What were you thinking about?”

She falters at this, blinking up at him. “W-what?”

“You heard me.” His smile widens as his head tilts, his chin jutting forward and exposing his stubbled lower jaw. “What had you thinkin’ so hard you had to go exploring, sweetheart?”

She flounders for how to explain that mostly it had been _him_, and casts her eyes away as she wets her lips. “I…I just needed to get myself used to the idea of being here.”

When she glances back to him from underneath her eyelashes, his gaze has darkened and she can feel his attention as it constricts down and hones in.

“Huh,” his eyes flicker over her face, and she _knows_ that they trace her lips before he meets her stare again. He leans closer, and the heady richness of leather overflows in her lungs. She clenches the fingers of her right hand on the hem of her sleeve. “Why do I have the feelin’ there’s somethin’ that you’re not tellin’ me...?”

His eyebrows quirk high and his dimples deepen. Her heart spikes into her throat as she fights to keep her eyes from shooting wide. Before she can squeak an excuse he continues.

“And that leads me to rule number two.” His gloved hand raises, his fingers displaying the number. “_Honesty_. You stay above board with me, and I do the same. Clear?”

She inhales swiftly as she nods, painfully aware of the bare inches between them and the wolfish joy in his expression. “Yes.”

“Good.” He leans back slowly until his long body is stretched out, broad shoulders pressing back and long legs reaching past hers. He blinks slowly, his tongue rubbing at the corner of his bottom lip. “So, what do you have to tell me?”

She casts her eyes down and is met with Lucille where the bat is draped across his thighs casually.

Lina cannot possibly tell him that she thinks about him as much as she does. The embarrassment would be terrible enough, his probable amusement is almost too awful to think about. So she sidelines that prospect and decides to tell him the rest. It _is_ honesty, just…not _complete_ honesty. It’ll have to be enough.

“It was…strange to wake up here. After everything…I miss my bed.” She huffs a hollow laugh and picks at her fingernails, avoiding his discerning stare. “It made me homesick. I usually wake up pretty early, back home I’d climb onto the roof and watch the sun come up. So, I thought I’d do the same thing again. I didn’t think about anyone checking on me. I’m not…used to that anymore.”

She sighs and runs her palms over the tops of her clothed thighs, annoyed that they’re a little sweaty. Irritated that he makes her anxious. She wonders when that will stop. If it will. She imagines in a huge place like this she won’t see him often, will that make it better or worse? The thought both relieves and saddens her, and Lina wants to scream at the ball of yarn her emotions are rolling themselves into.

His face is thoughtful as they look at each other, and she’s sure that Negan has all sorts of prying questions loaded and ready to fire. But she has some of her own, so she strikes first.

“What’s a Savior?”

His eyes flicker. “Why do you ask?”

She licks her lips and casts her eyes down to their booted feet, side by side, her fingers plucking at her sleeve. “Sean called me a Savior. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Is it some sort of name for your people?”

His lips purse as his eyes flick down to her fidgeting fingers. “What do you think I do, Lina?”

She resists frowning as her eyebrows dip. “What do you do? You run this place…?”

The way his mouth twitches gives away his pleasure at that. “Yeah, but that ain’t all darlin’. I find people, and I keep ‘em alive. I _save_ them.”

_Is that what you did to me?_

She doesn’t say it. Bites the words back with a nod as she runs a beaded bit of cloth under the nail of her forefinger. “You sent Daryl to find me, right? It wasn’t a coincidence that we crossed paths at the river.” He blinks wordlessly, and she sighs. “I should have known when you showed up the very next day. So, he’s a Savior?”

An enigmatic, potent energy radiates from him as he smiles up at her. “_Damn_ right he is.”

She swallows and braces herself for what she wants to ask next. “Sean…he’s dead?”

His smile widens, flashing his teeth and showcasing his dimples. “As a fuckin’ doornail.”

“And the rest?”

His chin ducks. “Yeaw, most o’them too.”

She digs her teeth into her top lip. Everything that has happened is rising up in her, pressing to be let out and understood by someone else. He’s the only person in the world that she knows even remotely well enough to tell, so she unseals her lips and starts pouring out words. “…They thought it was you. In the SUV. The trap was for you. But Ron recognized me from that day at the warehouse, so they took me. I think they would have left me there, otherwise.”

His smile is banked like hot ashes and withers away, until his mouth is set in a grim line. But he doesn’t interrupt, so she keeps going.

“Sean…he wanted to know about you. What you looked like, where you slept, when you were alone. Things that even if I _had_ been living here I don’t think I would’ve known.” One shoulder twitches in a shrug as she sighs. Her torso is aching, getting slowly worse. “Pretty unlucky for him, winding up with me of all people. I had nothing to tell them.”

His expression has cooled to tungsten steel, the daylight pooling in his deep irises and shimmering with a foreboding algor. Lucille is tapping against the toe of his left boot, a faint whisper of sound as her hungry barbs brush against the cloth of his pant leg.

Lina eyes the way the wire twinkles as Negan hums lowly. “He wasn’t the first prick to want me dead. Shit, he doesn’t even make top five. Won’t be the last, either.”

He seems so nonchalant, unbothered at the prospect of having people out for his blood. It’s mindboggling.

She’s used to the threat of walkers by now. Former people wanting to take chunks out of her has become a fact of life, gruesome as it is. Plus there’s always the chance of death-by-stranger, for her supplies or simply because the other person wants to kill. All that is enough insanity.

She can’t imagine what it would be like, to have real enemies trying to kill her on top of every other danger in the world these days. She wonders how long he’s dealt with it, how long he’s been so at ease with it.

“It wasn’t just that he wanted to kill you,” she tells him slowly, her eyes focused but unseeing on her hands as Sean’s manic face coalesces in her memory.

_Soon, everything else that’s his will be mine too._

“I think he wanted to _be_ you. He wanted all of _this_.” She gestures broadly with a hand to the Sanctuary at large, and shrugs.

He doesn’t seem surprised by her revelation, and chews on his lower lip as he watches her for a stretched out breath. “The one you attacked, he the one that cut you up?”

She flinches and tries to cover it with a shrug, the impulse to talk strangling itself in her throat. She shakes her head.

He _tsks_. “C’mon now. Rule number two…”

She glances at his raised eyebrows and set jaw, and wishes she could understand what he was thinking. He doesn’t seem pleased by this conversation any more than she is, but there is a strange necessity that she feels in the air between them. As though she needs to tell him and he _has_ to know.

So she inhales deeply and shakes her head again. “No. He beat me. I just…I saw him and I was so angry…”

“Who made the cuts?” There is a deep edge to his voice now. She hasn’t heard it before but she knows it’s meaning regardless: danger. “The bites?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She doesn’t hear the breathy quality of her voice as she stares beyond her feet and into the memories. It all bubbles up into her awareness like black oil from the ground, something that should have stayed buried down deep where it belonged.

She feels almost woozy, remembering the rush of pure rage that had floored her into action against Allen. Her incisors seem to ache with phantom pressure as she thinks of skin breaking beneath them. She knows that he had screamed, but she can’t remember the sound. All that comes to her is her own heartbeat in her temples.

She blinks and breathes out heavily, and realizes that Negan is still waiting.

“It doesn’t,” she insists. “That’s the truth…I killed him too.”

Negan’s lips curve in a smirk at her words, and he nods slowly. He seems almost proud. “Fair enough.”

She glances away from him, needing a break from his overwhelming presence. Her eyes trace a cloud’s swirls of white and grey. The strong daylight has banished the exotic colors for now, they won’t creep back in until tonight. “Can we go back down?”

His reply is to stand easily and wordlessly hold out his gloved hand to her, expectant. It’s a good thing too, because the prospect of pulling herself up had been a daunting one. So she slides her fingers over the black leather, trying not to notice that his hand swallows hers as the smooth material firms with his grip and he tugs her upwards.

She hisses as her torso bends the wrong way and stumbles into him, catching herself with her good hand on his shoulder. He is solid against her, his gloved hand moving to brace her elbow as she sways slightly. Her knees are unsteady, and she realizes abruptly just how tired she is.

She stares down at her fingers. The leather of Negan’s jacket is like butter under her touch, smooth and wonderfully well worn. She swallows, and tries to steel herself to the prospect of stepping away from him to go back down all those stairs as her legs tremble.

Maybe coming up here hadn’t been the best idea after all.

She bites her cheek as the pang in her ribs slowly withers back to dullness. With a relieved breath she shifts, ready to stand on her own. His hand tightening on her elbow causes her to still and look up at him.

Negan’s focus is entirely on her, his eyes tracking something in her own that has her blushing anew. A speculative flicker crosses his face, she can see it in the way his crow’s feet deepen slightly when his eyes narrow.

When she realizes that they haven’t been this close since the warehouse, nervous energy floods her body. She looks away, down to the neckline of his shirt where it presses against his skin. Her fingers fidget along the collar of his jacket as his breath brushes her forehead, and suddenly all she can smell is Negan.

The faint mint of what has to be toothpaste is still on his breath, and it tingles in her nostrils as she breathes in the essence of soap on salty skin. Accompanying that is the spice of deodorant and his natural sweat warring against each other beneath his leather jacket. It’s a _good_ smell – it’s Negan – and her body croons for more.

“Lina.”

She blinks up at him, buzzing with her recently awakened desires and trying desperately not to show it. Judging by the smugness of his expression, she’s failing. Her forefinger and thumb clip onto the collar of his jacket and rub the leather between them. Does the man wear it even on the hottest days? He must, it is clearly used to the shape of his frame.

She hums as some sort of response, knowing that she must seem an absolute loon in this moment as she clears her throat and steps backwards from him. His fingers tense on her elbow for the briefest instant before his hand drops away, and she nearly laughs aloud at herself when she misses the pressure.

_What is this man doing to me?_

“You gonna make it?”

She gapes at him for an embarrassing few breaths before she realizes that he has gestured to the door and the stairs beyond it. The comprehension hits her like cold water, and she resembles a bobble-head as she crosses her arms over herself, ignoring the pinch of pressure in the splint.

“Sure,” she finally manages, turning to the door so she doesn’t have to look at him anymore. “I made it up here, down is the easy part.”

He chuckles behind her, and when they reach the door he opens it casually and waves Lucille as permission to proceed him.

They don’t speak as they traverse the steps – which is dandy for Lina, all of her effort is focused on planting a foot on each stair and gripping the railing while she fights weakening legs. She does notice far more people in the building now, alone or in groups as they walk with purpose down the halls. At one point two men pass them going up the stairs – by the ‘sir’s they give Negan and the holstered pistols on their belts, she gets the impression they are some of his Saviors – they stop and make plenty of room for them to pass, their heads craned down to the landing that they pause on. If Negan acknowledges them, he doesn’t do so verbally and Lina doesn’t bother to turn and check.

She’s embarrassed now, being out here among so many people. She may be dressed in normal clothes and no longer blood-stained, but she knows her skin is a mass of dark bruising and that she is an outsider here. Even beside that, she just isn’t used to the people. The sound of so many voices and footsteps is cacophonous, and the idea that the most privacy she can get is a closed door is halfway terrifying. _Company_ is alien to her.

Negan is a heavy presence all the way back down, and once they are off the stairs he takes the lead. She lets her eyes drop to Lucille swaying in his left hand and follows him blindly, ignoring anyone they pass and whatever interactions they have with Negan. If she doesn’t look at them, somehow accepting their presence is easier. She can pretend they’re in her head.

Finally Negan stops in front of her and she looks up to see they are back at her door. Lucille rests on his shoulder as he turns and looks at her.

“Don’t go disappearing on Carson again, darlin’. People got shit to do around here.”

Nodding, she steps past him and opens the door. “I’m sorry, I…I have to get used to it again.”

His body tilts as he leans a shoulder into the doorframe. “What’s that?”

Taking a deep breath, she reaches up and fiddles with the end of her braid as a distraction. “Well...Caring, I guess. I’m used to only thinking about me.”

He seems interested in this thought, because he is obviously reflecting on something as he watches her and doesn’t respond. Her fingers pluck at her hair tie and she shifts on her feet. “I’ll stay here. I’ve got a book that I can read if I can’t sleep.”

A single eyebrow tips as he grins. “Better rest up, darlin’.”

She watches him walk away chuckling, and rolls her eyes as she closes the door and strides tiredly back to her abandoned bed. By the time Harlan and Ava come to give her a morning check, she is fast asleep once more. But this time, it’s not pain that she dreams of.

-

When Negan leaves Lina, his real day begins.

It’s still pretty early, so he leans at the railing near the front gates and watches the trucks get loaded up. One for each outpost. Once or twice a week he sends them out to deliver supplies the outposts need, and they come rolling back with the excess goods that his lieutenants send to the Sanctuary. Items the outposts don’t need or cannot store. Once the trucks are loaded, the Saviors that he’s picked for each run climb in. Gary yells for the gate to open, and off they go.

Next it’s settling in at his meeting table for reports.

Liam’s daily report from the fence guards is first. Since he’d decided to expand the perimeter – repurposing Alexandria’s pretty walls as his own – having walkers melted to the chain-link every fifty yards hadn’t seemed like enough. So in addition, there were guard posts built every few hundred yards on the sheet metal. Saviors watched the no-man’s land between the two fences, and the hostile territory beyond it.

It’s been close to five months, and so far the expansion seems entirely worth all the trouble. Even if he does have to listen to Liam tell him that the guards haven’t seen anything _every_ morning.

After that Liam has updates on the Savior’s patrols over the miles surrounding the Sanctuary, and the status of any ongoing redirects.

There’s a brief mention of the men down in the cells – two of them had screamed themselves hoarse early that morning. Liam had fed them before coming up to report. Negan briefly considers going down to toy with them, but it’s too early. He wants them on the edge of unstable, ready to cave. It’s only been two days. In his experience, three is the magic number.

When Liam is finished its Eugene’s turn. He only comes in once every week or two from the bullet shop, and listening to that man talk always makes Negan smile. If there isn’t some gold medal idea poppin outta those nervous lips, at the very least Eugene never has bad news. Negan likes that.

“It occurs to me tha-that…” Eugene trails off as the door opens and Carl is ushered into the room with Arat at his back. He stops a few feet between the door and the table in clear uncertainty. He’s never been in here before.

It’s long overdue. Truthfully Carl could have been a part of these meetings months ago, but Negan had to be sure he was ready. Shooting that idiot Ronny had been enough.

Breaking the kid hadn’t taken very much. Losing almost everyone he loved had done most of Negan’s work for him. Negan hadn’t enjoyed keeping the kid in a cell, but it had been necessary. There had been no more Rick and no more Alexandria, he had needed Carl to accept those facts. Three days – three magical days of watching Carl unravel – is all he’d needed with the dark.

Building him back up, however… Well, here they were a year or so later and his little serial killer is coming back guns a’blazin.

“Hey kid,” Negan greets him cheerily. “Saved ya a seat.”

Lucille rolls from his shoulder to point at the empty chair next to Eugene. Carl’s eye skips over everyone in the room as he moves to sit down. He must have an inkling of what happens here, he’s seen Negan enter and leave this room many times. Once Carl is seated and Arat has left, Negan turns back to Eugene with eyebrows raised.

“Dr. Smartypants, you were saying?”

Eugene swallows and settles himself. “It occurs to me that the Northwest parcel procured with the wall expansion this past spring has not yet been utilized to it’s full potential. That is nearly six acres of untapped beatitude waitin’ in the wings. Given this opportunity I have strung together several bona fide delineations for your careful consideration.”

Eugene bends down to pick up the messenger bag that he’d come in with. Generally speaking, if any of his inventions or ideas had to be written down and taken out of his office they went into that bag. He carried it with him whenever he left his outpost. Negan had grown to like that bag, even if it was made of cracked brown leather with that ugly ass stuffed animal hanging out the side. Things always got more interesting when that bag got pulled up from beside Eugene’s feet.

A green plastic folder appears from within, stuffed to nearly overflowing with several folded up papers. Eugene plucks one and unfolds it so that it stretches out across the table. The corners are smoothed as Negan stands, laying Lucille down along one edge to keep the paper from rising as he appraises the plans.

“My first cognition was perhaps the most discernable. Given the untouched natural state of the soil, transforming the plot into serviceable farmland is not out of the question.”

He continues on to explain how it could be done, referencing his plans. It included moving the greenhouses and animal pens to that side of the Sanctuary, which would take time. But looking at the drawings, Negan could admit it would make it much easier for food supplies to be grown and stored here. And there was a certain draw to the Sanctuary being less dependent on the Hilltop’s produce.

Another paper is drawn from the folder and unfolded out on top of the first. “The next potentiality is for living quarters. The last twelve month interval has resulted in an amplification of the Sanctuary’s populace, and barrin’ any adverse tragedy it can only continue on the same trajectory. This would be an ambitious undertaking, but the construction of either a barracks or some form of apartments would allow for more room within the factory proper for productivity.”

After looking over several different plans for buildings that Eugene seemed to have copied from blueprints he’d found – which he confirmed he still had at his outpost, should they be needed – Negan sat back down. He leaned back in his chair, propping an elbow on his raised knee and rubbing at the whiskers around his mouth as he weighed the options.

In truth he’d been so damn busy dealing with bullshit outside the Sanctuary lately he hadn’t had time to give it much thought. Currently the area in question was just a large open clearing. After cutting away the forest, the workers had left the largest trees standing. A lot of his people – Saviors and workers alike – liked to go there to spend time outside in relative safety. Benches and chairs had been set up around firepits for night-time gatherings, and the children spent a lot of time there under the supervision of their parents. Negan didn’t mind them doing so. It was about as close to a park as this world was going to get.

So the prospect of tearing it up in a construction project doesn’t exactly thrill him, even as he knows it’s necessary. The room is mostly quiet while the others wait for his input, the occasional question being asked of Eugene about this detail or that.

Both options have weight, but Negan isn’t content with either. Mostly because he doesn’t enjoy the prospect of all his workers moving out of the factory proper, and he doesn’t need his fighting force going starry eyed at tomatoes on a vine. If the Sanctuary loses it’s edge, it dies.

“Why does it need to be one or the other?” Carl breaks the interlude, his one eye trained on the plans as he leans forward. “Why not build both? Six acres is a lot for what we’re considering, and the only thing on that side of the Sanctuary right now is that large garage that the big trucks are stored in. Take that down and put the trucks on the west side in the newer garages, and put the greenhouses where the garage is now.”

Carl is animated as he talks, separating both papers so they lie side by side and gesturing this way and that with a pointer finger. Negan rests his chine on his thumb, lays a few fingers over his mouth and watches the kid do his thing.

There are some days when he regrets what he did in Alexandria. Sure, some of the people are still alive and scattered around his outposts but most of them are dead. Mainly he thinks of the resource those people had been together and wishes he’d had the time to bend them the right way.

Then there are moments like this – when he sees Carl growing like a statue gaining shape out of marble, or Judith smiles up at him from his lap – and his regrets vanish. The ones that are alive are the ones that matter, and he’ll keep them that way.

“…room for a small orchard. And if we build the apartments right we can even leave some of the space untouched. People like going out there to unwind. This way we have the best of both ideas.”

Carl falls silent, and Negan can tell from a cursory glance that he’s won over Eugene. Liam has a grudgingly speculative tilt to his mouth as he leans forward onto his elbows and looks closer at the housing plans.

Liam doesn’t like to talk about what he’d been before the outbreak. He’d told Negan some details once, enough for Negan to judge more of what the man was capable of. He’d been high up on some corporate ladder, unmarried and very wealthy. When the dead had started to rise he’d abandoned it all, to hear him tell it. Left his riches behind for a duffel bag and a rifle and got the hell out of Pennsylvania while the gettin’ was good.

The man was a goddamn warrior no two ways about it, best second he’d had at the Sanctuary since Simon had gotten his own outpost. But the killer takes a step back sometimes and lets the businessman out for fresh air, and Negan appreciates that. People that have facets are people that survive.

This is one of those moments, as the glaring blue of Liam’s eyes dims and his expression becomes studious. “Who gets this new housing?”

Carl blinks and frowns. “Well…we’d have to decide that. It would make sense to put the people working the crops there. They’d be closer to their work. And farming is pretty backbreaking, they’d be deserving of better living conditions than, say, someone that scavenges.”

“Some of those people that scavenge bring back important things. Medicine, electronics, weapons. And they face roamers to do it.” Liam’s voice is flattened and unimpressed. “The Saviors go out every day to patrol, redirect or kill roamers, and bring back the food that everyone here lives on. You want to ignore them putting their lives on the line to bring the Sanctuary supplies, in favor of some farmers?”

Carl’s eye has narrowed down to a glare at the dismissive tone of Liam’s words. Negan’s lips twitch beneath his fingers as he leans further back and guesses at what Carl will do next.

“The Saviors already have the best living conditions right here in the factory. We go every day with the best of everything, and there’s no reason to move any Saviors out. But the _workers_ would benefit from living in their own homes, and we could use the space on the factory floor for other things.”

“If we built both the farmland and the housing there isn’t enough space for every worker to have their own room. So, what, some of them get the housing and some keep living behind the curtains in the factory?”

Liam’s voice remains cool and remote, a businessman eyeing the options as they tip the scales. Carl takes the bait, though. He leans further forward on the table, his pale skin betraying his anger with a slight flush rising in his face. “We can figure it out, we’ve got nothing but time and resources. We _owe_ it to the people here to-”

“Enough,” Negan finally interjects, letting his disappointment shadow in his voice. He watches as Carl’s head swivels to him, his eye going wide before he slumps back in his chair and crosses his arms. He’s never looked more like a sulky sixteen year old, and his words have never made him sound more like Rick’s son. 

Liam leans back too, sitting casually with his arms outstretched on the table, unbothered. Eugene seems content to ignore the tension, his eyes flickering back over his plans as though looking for improvements.

Negan taps Lucille lightly in a rhythm against his kneecap as he thinks.

“We’ll do both,” he announces, standing. “Eugene, get to work on the plans. I’ll decide the rest when they’re done.”

He dismisses them with a wave of Lucille and leaves them behind. He’s only halfway down the hall towards the stairs when Carl catches up with him. He’s aware of a bright gaze flickering to him repeatedly as the kid speeds up to keep pace with him, but Carl doesn’t speak. He knows to wait.

Once they’re up on the level of their living quarters where the hall is empty, Negan lets a sigh leak out. “You lost your cool, kid.”

For his part Carl seems regretful as he visibly swallows and looks away. “I know.”

Negan grunts as he opens the door to his room and ushers the kid in, closing it behind them. Only once he’s settled with a contented sigh into the deep cushion of his leather couch does he set Lucille gently at his side. Carl sits across from him, in the same chair he almost always chooses. It still makes Negan smile, remembering their first conversation in this very spot. It’s fascinating to think how much things have changed.

“Now,” he begins, propping a foot up on his coffee table. “You think a worker deserves more than a Savior?”

“No, I-”

“See that would _surprise_ me, given that for years you spent most of every damn day killing dead pricks and finding what you needed to keep livin’. Every Savior here does exactly that, _and_ provides for those too weak to do so themselves. So where you have gotten such a dipshit idea beats the _hell_ outta me.”

Carl seems to have recognized the lecture for what it is, and sits quietly with his hands clasped on top of his lap. That, however, is the end of his contriteness. His face is stoic and his eye is narrowed intently on Negan as his lips stay pursed in exasperation. He’s a hair away from an outburst, but he’s holding it in and listening.

Negan suppresses a smirk and continues. Carl has guts, but he needs to remember the stakes. “Now, maybe I’ve made a mistake. Here you are inside the Sanctuary every day, out of harm’s way. Been a while since you got close to a dead one. Maybe you have _forgotten_ the risks the Saviors take. _So_,” he taps an index finger against the soft leather of the armrest. “Go get ready kid, you’re goin’ out on patrol with Liam. His team goes out this afternoon.”

Carl freezes, his eye going wide enough that Negan can see white all the way around his iris. He nods and is up in a flash, almost flying out the door. Only once Negan hears the door to Carl’s room open and close down the hall does he let an amused smile show.

The kid’s been begging him to go on patrols for months now, ever since his depth perception and aim got better. He doesn’t need to know that Negan had planned on sending him out with Liam today anyway. It had been planned as a reward, but it’ll serve as a lesson.

Shaking his head, he leans forward to the ledgers sitting on his coffee table, waiting for his daily attention. There are two, and if there is such a thing as the secrets of the Sanctuary they are hidden within those books.

Agnes, the woman that kept them, had been a businesswoman before the outbreak. She’d kept inventories and accounting for a living. That knowledge hadn’t faded since the dead started roaming, nor had her proclivity for secrecy. The woman had lips that zipped shut.

He sighs and rubs at his chin as he opens the first book, which is the inventory report for the Sanctuary. The current page is marked by a thick card of stock paper, a fancy square of black with silver flecks in it that Agnes fancied for some reason or another. He has no idea where she’d found it.

This time, however, the bookmark has company. A loose leaf of paper slips from the pages. It’s an inventory list. Long and clearly detailed, it fills the entire page and continues on the back. He runs his eyes over the list, taking account of the new surplus. The words and numbers are neat, meticulous. At the end, scrawled in a wispy cursive that he knows to be what Agnes refers to as her ‘casual hand’, he reads: _‘Proceeding as planned.’_

He reads the inventory a second time over before folding the page and tucking it into a jacket pocket. Then he settles in to read the ledgers. He’s got time before checking the status of the weapons locker with Arat.

He could use the quiet, too. Being woken up at the asscrack of dawn and told that Lina was gone had been one hell of a way to start the day. He feels annoyance prickle at the base of his spine at the memory of one of his saviors stuttering to him after he’d wrenched open the door. His fury only mounted with every person that reported they hadn’t seen her.

Finding her sitting casually up on his roof – looking half asleep and obviously having cried at some point – had cooled his jets quick. He hadn’t planned on laying down some new rules for her until she was better rested, but he knew someone looking for structure when he saw them. Given his knowledge of her – she set rules for _herself_, for god sake – she clearly needed something to drive her.

But shit, who didn’t?

His lips twitch as he flips a page. He’s starting to really enjoy the way those sweet eyes glow like peridot when she’s upset. He can’t wait for the day when her bruises are completely healed so he can fully appreciate her blushes again.

But those bruises…

Sean had wanted the Sanctuary for himself, so Lina said. The monster in him bares its teeth with a grumble. That’s not all the fucker had wanted. _“She would have been nice to keep…”_

Renewed rage sparks in his lungs, and his teeth grind as his fingers tighten on the ledger. He almost regrets not killing Sean himself. But having the man be killed by the very people he’d convinced to follow him seemed so fitting.

There’s a grim energy in his muscles, and with a clenched jaw he stands and picks up Lucille. The ledgers slap down onto the coffee table and he strides from the room. Maybe it’s time to pay the cells a visit after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See ya on the next one! Any feedback is welcome.


End file.
